


Blood in the Snow

by Deus_Ex



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brock Rumlow Not Being An Asshole, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve, Secrets, Writing, hand-written letters, russian language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3582999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deus_Ex/pseuds/Deus_Ex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumlow didn't answer immediately.  He shifted and winced and grimaced as he tried to get comfortable; he quietly shushed Bucky at his elbow, calming him again with reassurances of his good behavior and satisfaction with him; he took several deep breaths as the spikes on the monitor indicating heartbeat started to come faster.  Several tense seconds passed, and Steve was starting to wonder if he ought to call in a nurse.  But then, Rumlow's fourth steady, controlled exhale lowered his heart rate again, and he finally seemed to have found somewhere less painful to lay.  "You're telling me now, Cap, that the Man with a Plan has no plan whatsoever?"</p><p>"My plan was to get Bucky home with me safely, and get him the help he needs," Steve sighed.  "But it's never that easy, is it?"</p><p>"Good intentions," Rumlow admitted grudgingly.  "Still...I'd rather not go down on the same boat as some of the rest of 'em.  Yeah, I'm no saint.  I know that.  But...I tried to do right by him.  Guess you could say that I cared about him.  Not really sure what that means anymore, though."<br/>-----<br/>Or, Steve and Rumlow come to a tentative truce when they both realize that all they really want is to protect Bucky.</p><p>Now multi-chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"Steve, we found him. There's just one problem."_

_"If there's only one problem, then I don't have any."_

_"No, it's a problem, trust me. You're not going to like where we found him."_

Steve had almost bolted from the room when Natasha told him that they had found Bucky. By some miracle, the Black Widow had convinced him to wait for backup to arrive before they left, despite his vehement protests that it was unnecessary, that Bucky had recognized him and wouldn't hurt him, and even if he was out of his mind, he could control him. No one had really bought it, however, and so Steve had been forced to pace the floor riddled with anxiety and frustration until a man dressed in nondescript black riot gear armed with a rifle poked his head in and told them everyone was present and they were ready to move out. It took another miracle to get Steve into the back seat of the truck, as opposed to sitting shotgun and constantly harassing the driver or, worse, flat-out demanding to drive himself. Somehow, though, they managed, and Natasha was more and more glad with every passing moment that she'd taken those few extra minutes.

It started out as suspicion. A crinkled brow, downturns at the corners of his lips. Then it became more pronounced, the lines growing deeper and the expression exaggerating. Then it turned to rage as they made another turn, the building came into view, and his suspicions transformed into confirmations. He knew exactly where they were headed, who was there, why they had found Bucky there, and why it was all a problem. The only thing he was missing was how Bucky knew where to go, and why he felt the need to return-but then again, with that skill set and mindset, respectively, perhaps Bucky's fractured psyche could explain itself.

Steve was out of the car and marching into the hospital with purpose and intent, blowing right past the multitude of armed guards at the entrance. Everyone stood aside and let him pass, though not without sideways glances and whispers under their breath. All of it was ignored; he had more pressing matters at had than what they said. His best friend was up just four short flights of stairs, broken and terrified and in the company of someone that made Steve wish he was alone instead. He'd lost him once on the train, twice on the highway, and a third time on the helicarriers-he wasn't going to let him slip away a fourth time. The presence of another person would only hurt and hinder that effort, especially given the identity of the person in question, but Steve never did know when to quit. He was leaving here with his best friend safe in his arms, or he wasn't leaving at all!

He knew what room to go to; he climbed the stairs with definitive steps, heading in the direction that he was certain beyond a doubt would lead him straight to Bucky. His heart was hammering in his chest, a combination of anxiety and fury, but his breathing remained calm and collected. In and out, inhale and exhale, each breath a measured gesture that took several seconds to execute. He could hear footsteps behind him in the concrete stairwell, but he let the heavy door swing back and slam in the faces of whoever was pursuing him. He would not be deterred, he would not be talked down, he would not even slow down. Behind him, the door wrenched open again, and the sound of the boots of twelve men and women armed to the teeth heavily tramping across the ground echoed through the hallway as a SHIELD unit finally caught up to him and fell into step behind, in front, and beside him. It was a formal guard, he knew, but when they arrived at the door he furiously shoved aside the man who reached for the handle to open it, shouldered around the man and woman who made to enter first, and preceded them all into the room.

It was a hospital room. There was nothing special about it, from the blue-ish, thin sheets on the bed to the drape separating the halves of the room to the silent TV mounted on the wall to the IV drip standing next to the bed. The man lying in that nondescript, boring bed, though, was far more interesting, and then the man kneeling next to it even more so. All guards had been removed from the immediate vicinity for everyone's safety: no one was sure what the burn victim would order the HYDRA weapon to do next. Right now, the only person in the room who had any sort of control over the situation was the only one who couldn't stand. Crushed and burned and nearly killed in the collapse of the forty-first floor of the Triskelion, Brock Rumlow was the only surviving and accounted-for HYDRA agent SHIELD had found. Every other known agent they had encountered had been a corpse. Oh, there was a list somewhere of more people that were associated with the rogue organization: tracking them down, however, was a different story. SHIELD was still struggling to find all of its own members, so finding HYDRA was going to have to be a project for the back burner until they had enough manpower to carry out the mission.

"Well, well, Cap. Good to see you."

Steve chose to ignore Rumlow. His focus was instead on the brunette next to him, dressed in heavy leather and Kevlar combat gear, with his metal arm fully exposed and his long hair hanging in matted clumps around his face. His blue eyes were wide, troubled, and fixed on Steve; his entire body vibrated with the urge to do something but the blankness that couldn't supply him with a _something_ to do. "Bucky," Steve whispered, swallowing down the bit of vomit that worked its way up his throat when Rumlow's burned and bandaged hand fell to Bucky's hair and began gently stroking it back from his face. As much as he wanted to ignore Rumlow, he couldn't ignore the way Bucky shuddered and pressed into that hand, grateful for any contact at all. It would seem that the Winter Soldier was dreadfully skin-starved, having yearned for affection for so long that it no longer mattered who it came from, as long as it came.

"He's not Bucky anymore, Cap," Rumlow declared, voice altogether too smug for a man with burns over seventy percent of his body. Even his voice was raspy, hoarse, and gravelly from smoke inhalation, but Rumlow gave no indication of the pain as he plowed on: "He's got no clue who you are."

"Yes he does!" Steve insisted, taking a step forward. It must have been the suddenness of the move, but Bucky started badly. Leaping to his feet, diving between Rumlow and Steve, Bucky had shouted something unintelligible and drawn a gun, which was suddenly aimed directly at Steve's face. Immediately, the blonde man backed off, backpedaling two steps to give Bucky space and holding up his hands in a show of surrender. "Bucky, hey, it's okay," Steve murmured, keeping his voice low and soft and his eyes moving so he didn't even up staring Bucky down. "I'm not going to hurt you, no one's here to hurt you. Come on, Buck, I'm not going to fight you, you know that. You remember the helicarrier? I got you out, didn't I? And then you got me out, too. We're friends."

Confusion swept over Bucky like a huge wave had swamped him and knocked him off his feet and dragged him under. Floundering, shaking even harder now, wanting to turn to Rumlow for direction but not daring to take his eyes off Steve, Bucky stood, shivering and shaking, for several tense, pregnant seconds before Rumlow's crackling laughter broke the silence. "Приходите," he commanded, raising one hand to crook his fingers at Bucky. At this, Bucky seemed to melt: he immediately returned to Rumlow's side, and Steve had to fight down nausea again as the image of a kicked dog begging for a scrap of meat entered his mind. Bucky didn't just look like he wanted Rumlow's approval: he _needed_ it, with a fervent desire that would drive a man to kill. Steve decided not to pursue that line of thought.

"Bucky," Steve tried again, trying to regain his best friend's attention. If Bucky could focus on him, he had a much better chance or convincing him to stand down and walk out of there with him. But if Bucky wasn't listening to a word he said, he didn't have a shot in hell.

As always, Bucky remained entirely concentrated on Rumlow, infuriatingly so. He was leaning into him, crowding closer, eyes sliding shut as he gave himself over to Rumlow's halting, but gentle touch. The movements hitched and Rumlow flinched at them, but he still kept it up. At the moment, Steve couldn't assume anything but taunting. Why else would Rumlow continue to do it even when it pained him? Surely this wasn't for Bucky's comfort! Steve didn't believe that Rumlow could possibly have it in his heart to care for anyone or anything besides himself and the cause, let alone for Bucky. He'd used him and abused him the same as the rest, and in a way, this facade of caring was even worse than straight abuse. This invited trust, which only it made it that much more painful when it was shattered.

"I told ya, Cap," Rumlow chortled, still carding his fingers through Bucky's hair. Bucky looked like he was on the verge of tears now: squirming, casting worried glances at Rumlow and then at Steve and then back again, starting to raise a hand towards the bed but halting halfway like he didn't dare-it made Steve absolutely sick, and he was sure he he had to look at this any more, he'd lose whatever he'd eaten for lunch. "Тише." When the command seemed to have no effect on Bucky, Rumlow added, "Settle." This one had an immediate result: Bucky visibly calmed, sinking down and relaxing all of the coiled tension locked in his muscles. He sagged heavily against the side of the bed, sighing out softly and pillowing his head on the edge of the mattress so he was still within easy reach for Rumlow. Seeing his words have an effect, Rumlow nodded shallowly, just once, and then continued. "He doesn't answer to that name anymore."

"Then what does he answer to?" He tried, and failed, to not make it sound accusatory.

Rumlow barely shrugged in response, and when he answered, he stated it like it was the most obvious answer in the world: "I've been calling him Winter. He seems to like that."

At first, the wording went straight over Steve's head. His mouth was already open to spit out a vicious retort in return when the words caught in his mind. _He seems to like that._ Not, _I think it's cute,_ or, _The last guy who got a little too attached wanted to name him._ It almost sounded like...like Rumlow had tried a few different names, and based what he called him on what Bucky responded most positively to. It was a strangely intimate and oddly caring gesture for Rumlow and, like everything else the man had done so far, sat very poorly in Steve's gut.

"So how did you get him to come to you?"

Shifting his weight now from both feet to one, Steve rested his hands on his hips and tried not to look too agitated as Rumlow answered. "Simple, Cap...I called him."

"Little more specific, Rumlow, even a loudmouth like you can't shout out the window and cover a hundred miles. He had no idea you were even alive, let alone where to start looking. He was confused and afraid when he walked away from me. Rational thought was the last thing in his head. He didn't just stumble across you. So how did you communicate with him."

Either Rumlow was on great drugs or he was feeling too cocky and assured of his own victory to care what he divulged to Steve. Either way, the Captain counted his lucky stars that Rumlow was in a good mood. "That arm's got a communicator built into it. We thought it might be handy in case, ya know...we got separated."

"'We,' who's 'we?'"

"His handlers, Cap. Come on, your Spider out there released all the data she found stuck in her World Wide Web-you gotta have read it by now."

"Sorry, Rumlow, little busy the last few days, Internet hasn't been a priority. Bring me up to speed."

At this, Rumlow sighed, but not in annoyed fashion; more along the lines of a smug satisfaction with a hint of mirth at knowing that he was the one who had the answers and he reveled in others' lack of knowledge. "Ah, Steve, buddy...gotta get caught up on that! Handlers, you know...the people specially trained to deal with Winter. We have all the codes, know all the commands, know the procedures and the protocols and how everything goes down. This is the sort of weapon you do need special training to use...and there were never very many of us. Not everyone was cut out for it, obviously...but he didn't like some of them, and he didn't pull everyone out of the way of bullets if he didn't have to. There was this one guy...Jenkins. Kind of a dick to everyone. But he was authoritative and didn't hesitate to get his hands dirty, so he fit in with the crowd. Liked to beat on Winter here. At first we thought, 'okay, wants to establish that he's in charge, no room for disobedience.' The second the dog knows it can bite, it bites, and there's no stopping it, right? Well, one day, he fails a mission. His fault, but he made Winter take the fall. Oh, Winter never forgot it. One day, he sends Winter out for an assassination. Real routine, one bullet, open and shut. He hits him across the mouth so fucking hard and tells him, 'don't you screw up again, you worthless piece of shit, or your ass is mine.' All of a sudden, that rifle fires two bullets instead of one, it all looks like an accident, and Winter here...didn't say a word. Just came back to extraction, got in the truck, sat down, and got that thousand-yard stare." Rumlow had to pause to cough, but Steve made no move for the glass of water at his bedside. His limbs still felt like lead from the shock of the story Rumlow had just told him rather nonchalantly.

"They wanted to wipe him...I convinced them not to. I saw how he got when they even said the words. He may not have been able to remember why he was scared, but fuck, he was scared alright. I calmed him down, kept him quiet, worked with him...and he only ever got wiped again the day he saw you, Rogers." Coughing again, Steve could almost hear a laugh in there. "You, Rogers...ya fucked it all up. I had the best record of any handler, I even kept him in better shape than fucking _Pierce_ did. I was going to be the first handler to ever go his entire run without ever needing a wipe. But you...you come along and...blow that shit to high hell..."

Now, Rumlow truly needed to stop, because the coughing came on hard and strong, seizing his chest in great spasms that rocked his entire body. It was enough to worry even Bucky, who finally opened his eyes and came out of the trance-like state he'd fallen into cast a worried gaze up at Rumlow. Rumlow managed to rasp out, "Not you," by way of hasty explanation and comfort to Bucky before the coughing overcame him again. Despite the reassurance, Bucky still looked anxious, eyes flickering back and forth between Rumlow and Steve and body beginning to tense again as uncertainty swept through him again and left him with a crippling ball of fear in his stomach. At that moment, Steve realized that he could no longer ignore Rumlow's discomfort: not when it so obviously upset Bucky. Moving slowly, keeping an eye on Bucky, Steve tentatively skirted the edge of the bed, moving around to the opposite side where a plastic tray supported a glass of water, a paperback book, a spiral-bound notebook, and a pen. Picking up the glass, which was actually plastic, he carefully held it to Rumlow's lips and let him drink a bit from it. When he replaced the glass on the table, he was shocked to receive a nod of thanks and what he could swear was genuine gratitude in Rumlow's eyes.

"So what happens now?" Steve couldn't refrain from asking even as he pulled up the plastic chair and sank down into it, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. "I can't see you letting him go. And we both know I won't, either. He can't follow you to prison. And he can't stay here. On the one hand, you've let them torture him and use him even if you haven't had a personal hand, and you're directly responsible for more murders than I can count. But he won't leave your side, and you know all the right words to use. So...you tell me how this is all going to work out."

Rumlow didn't answer immediately. He shifted and winced and grimaced as he tried to get comfortable; he quietly shushed Bucky at his elbow, calming him again with reassurances of his good behavior and satisfaction with him; he took several deep breaths as the spikes on the monitor indicating heartbeat started to come faster. Several tense seconds passed, and Steve was starting to wonder if he ought to call in a nurse. But then, Rumlow's fourth steady, controlled exhale lowered his heart rate again, and he finally seemed to have found somewhere less painful to lay. "Actually, Cap, I was hoping you could tell me. You're telling me now that the Man with a Plan has no plan whatsoever?"

"My plan was to get Bucky home with me safely, and get him the help he needs," Steve sighed. "But it's never that easy, is it?"

"Good intentions," Rumlow admitted grudgingly. "Still...I'd rather not go down on the same boat as some of the rest of 'em. Yeah, I'm no saint. I know that. But...I tried to do right by him. I tried my best to be gentle, keep him calm, treat him right...never hit him, never made him do anything but what he needed to do, never took advantage of him, kept him away from the ones who did...guess you could say that I cared about him. Not really sure what means anymore, though."

"Never thought I'd say it, but you might actually be right. You're still not forgiven by any means...but it does mean something that you tried."

"What, you're actually taking my word for it now?"

"Not yours." Here, Steve nodded to Bucky, docile and pliant under Rumlow's hands. "His." At the glance from Rumlow that might have been an astonished one if he had a bit more skin left on his face, Steve elaborated, "He's not afraid of you, at least, not what I can see...if nothing else you seem to ground him and offer him a sense of normalcy in a time when he's obviously very lost. His word will mean nothing in court after everything he's been through, so if you're counting on him being your ticket out of a very long time spent in federal prison, you're sadly mistaken. But if you can cooperate with me-with _us_ -maybe I can put in a good word for you. Reduced sentence only! And you're going to have to be _extremely_ cooperative."

Another dark chuckle, accompanied by the usual hacking, wheezing cough; water was waved away this time as Rumlow snorted, "No promises, big man. Not until every single last HYDRA agent is dead and gone. Because if there's even one left, they will sure as hell hunt me down and put a bullet in me, and there won't be a damn thing you can do to stop it."

"I can offer you protection-"

"No. No you can't. You know what offers me protection? _This,_ this, right here. This...beauty. Finer than any weapon you ever held in your hands. Meaner than any attack dog. More obedient than any other of the same. A work of art. So if you want me alive long enough to stand trial, you leave him here with me. He's the only reason they haven't come yet."

"Are you crazy? They'll all be drawn to him like flies to honey! They want him back something fierce, and they'll stop at nothing to get him. You're crazy if you think I'm leaving him alone with you! How do I know you won't just raise the alarm and send him back, make yourself a hero, and have them spirit you both away?"

"Then stay if you like, but he wouldn't leave unless I ordered him to. Maybe not even then. You think I want him going back to that, you're crazy. Sometimes the only thing that would keep him quiet was me whispering to him that I'd get him out, but he just had to do one more mission for me, just one more hit, just one more, just one more...I kept promising him he'd get out of there and I'd take care of him, and after breaking that 'just one more' I don't intend to break the 'I'll get you out.' So no, Cap, he's not going anywhere. Not when we're doing just fine right here. But by all means, camp out. There's a spare bed over there. For some reason, they didn't want to give me a roommate."

"Yeah, between the anticipated assassination attempts, law enforcement in and out, and your charming personality, I can't see why not."

Rumlow forcibly restrained his laughter to avoid another coughing fit, keeping it a low, rumbling chuckle deep in his chest. "Ya know what the worst part of all of this is," he sighed. "Maybe, just maybe...if you didn't wear the American flag as a uniform and I didn't have the trigger phrase to your boyfriend here...we mighta gotten on okay. Coulda taken you out for a drink if you ditched that obnoxious outfit. And you woulda let me if I hadn't been at the other end of the leash. Funny world we live in, Cap."

"A small one. And getting smaller too quickly for my liking."

"Only gets worse from here, big guy. I mean it."

For several long minutes, the only sound in the room was the rhythmic tick of the heart monitor, and the scrape of breath against windpipes in various states of damage or health. The pause was less charged, though: the majority of the animosity had bled out of the air, Steve was no longer glaring daggers at Rumlow over folded arms, Bucky had quieted again, and the snark had peeled away from Rumlow's demeanor. It was an odd change, but a welcome one: it would seem that they had stumbled upon a tentative peace for the time being.

"Зима, здесь. Смотрите."

At the words, Bucky unfolded his form with smooth, rolling motions, and effortlessly levered himself up onto the bed next to Rumlow. He shamelessly laid down next to him, carefully minding his damaged limbs, and settled quite comfortably, boots and all, stretched out on the narrow bed pressed against Rumlow as much as he could be without causing him pain. Loosely draping an arm across Bucky's shoulders, Rumlow spared Steve a glance and a quick word: "He won't let anyone in this room until I call him off, so if you're planning on staying, by all means, stay. Neither of us is going anywhere."

Obviously torn, Steve hung his head and sighed heavily. Rumlow shifted around a bit, prompting a sudden recoil from Bucky. Shushing him again, Rumlow got comfortable once more and then invited Bucky back into his arms, only seeming to really settle when Bucky did. "Is he okay if I stick my head out to talk to Natasha?" he asked, voice unsure in its slight tremor.

"Yeah, I'll hang onto him," Rumlow said lightly. "Make it quick, though, I want to sleep. If you decide to head out, just walk out and make sure the door shuts firmly behind you. If Winter can't hear it open, he might, ah...surprise the next person to walk in. He doesn't really know what a warning shot is."

A disparaging snicker; the scrape of the chair across the floor as Steve got up; the click of the door latch, the creak of hinges, the soft murmur of voices never rising above a whisper; and then, the next click that was the door closing again, footsteps padding quietly across the grungy tile floor, and the groan of a tired bed supporting two-hundred-something pounds of super-soldier crawling onto it and sprawling out. Rumlow smirked, even as he was supposed to be sleeping. He'd known Steve would stay, just like he knew this was going to be the best night of sleep he ever got in his life.

 

 

Приходите: Come.  
Тише: Quiet.  
Зима, здесь. Смотрите.: Winter, up here. Watch.


	2. Chapter 2

The next few days were tense, but stable. Steve was a near-constant presence in the room in an attempt to acclimate Bucky to his presence. Bucky himself had evened out a bit, losing the feral edge that he carried about himself and becoming less reactive to the whirl of activity that surrounded them. Rumlow was getting stronger at a remarkable rate, whether due to drugs, something HYDRA had done, or his own sheer will a complete mystery. Various SHIELD agents came and went; Steve knew some of them by name, others, by face, and others, not at all. Their presence still set Bucky on edge, but he calmed quickly at Rumlow's assurances. The medical staff was efficient and discreet, which was a blessing to everyone's frayed nerves. They came in quietly and slowly, did their job without any fuss, and left again. "Grateful" didn't even begin to cover it in Steve's book. The situation was delicate at best, and didn't need more fuel poured onto the fire.

Natasha came in one day to see Steve leaning against the far wall, Rumlow in his usual position in bed, and Bucky sitting on the edge of the mattress. Everything about him screamed _discomfort,_ but Rumlow's tone and body language was full of patience and compassion. It startled her to see him so gentle, raising a hand to the fingers Bucky had knotted together in his lap, shoulders hunched and head bowed and legs together and just trying to make himself small. The slightest bit of tension bled out of him at the touch, though, and perhaps that was more telling than anything else she'd seen.

"Steve, we have word from the agents outside. Come talk to them."

"In a minute," Steve replied absently, gazed fixed on Rumlow and Bucky. The two former HYDRA agents were in their own little world, and he couldn't help a surge of jealousy at the realization. Rumlow's tone remained soft and non-abrasive, but became coaxing in nature now. He was speaking in Russian, and Bucky was listening attentively. Steve was dying to know what he was saying, but was also repulsed by the fact that his Bucky was so deeply ensnared in Rumlow's web. In moments like this, it was impossible to deny the bond between the two of them...however twisted and malformed it may be.

Natasha, perceptive as always, allowed her gaze to flicker for the barest of moments to Rumlow and Bucky; she barely needed that much time to take them in before she was releasing the softest of sighs and gently nudging Steve again: "Come on, you're not making any progress standing here staring. Come back in a few minutes, give Rumlow some time to make progress."

"Some time to make progress? You mean time to make sure Bucky can never leave him-!"

"Steve, he's all we've got...he's the only key to breaking through to Bucky. At some point, you just need to accept that there is little you can do and let Bucky come to you on his own."

"But what if he never does?" Steve turned to face Natasha fully now. With his arms folded across his chest, he presented a much more imposing figure than the look on his face suggested. In reality, the uncertainty growing in his chest was crippling and devastating, and he was doing everything he could to hold it at bay.

"He will." And there was something about Natasha's quiet certainty, the confidence with which she delivered her words, the firm inflections in her speech patterns, that just _convinced_ him. It was easy to trust her right now, and especially after everything they'd been through. Now that they knew each other well and had fought together and developed a history, it was no large undertaking to put his faith in her. "Now come on out for a second," she coaxed, seeing the iron resolve mixed with worry dissipate into something a little more malleable. "Get some fresh air."

It didn't take much more to convince Steve to step out for a moment, especially when she offered to stay and try to speak to Bucky herself. Having someone else present eased Steve's mind greatly, and the super-soldier finally abandoned his post. Natasha could swear Bucky's shoulders relaxed minutely at his departure, and she was instantly curious as to why.

"Вы помните его?"

Bucky's head snapped up so quickly Natasha thought he had given himself whiplash. "Нет!" he answered quickly, the tremor in his voice betraying him. Rumlow immediately reached back over, murmuring quietly in Russian as well, but Bucky's gaze was suddenly fixed on Natasha, with all-too-human fear reverberating in the liquid depths of his ocean-blue eyes.

"He doesn't know why he's afraid," Rumlow sighed, when Bucky remained stock-still and staring at Natasha. "But there's a part of him that remembers what happened the last time he let on that he remembered Rogers. He knows something bad happened that he never wants to have happen again...he just doesn't know what."

"I can't imagine he enjoys being talked about like he isn't even present," Natasha observed shrewdly, casually crossing the room and seating herself on the edge of the bed next to Bucky. He visibly shrank back towards Rumlow, but she kept her body language and tone exactly the same. Sometimes, doing nothing could be the most reassuring thing a person experienced.

"Truthfully...he's coming back in pieces, and I don't know what pieces have come back, which ones will, ad if they'll come back the same. The Winter I knew was never this fearful..."

"Things are very different," Natasha replied evenly. "I can sympathize." Attempting not to ostracize Bucky or make him feel excluded and demeaned, she addressed him directly again: "But they are better, Winter. I can promise you that Steve is very kind, and he'll do anything to help you."

Being addressed in a familiar fashion seemed to take the edge off of the feral panic brewing behind Bucky's eyes, a reassuring sign. Natasha decided to see if she could endear him to her a bit more, and pushed forward. "It must be nice to have a little bit of something you knew still with you...as long as it's something that was good in the past. I was kind of in your situation once, too, you know: I worked for the KGB, and it wasn't my choice. They used mind-control and brainwashing on me, too. But I got out and I got myself together, and I'm doing much better now. Just give it time: and if you ever want to talk, I can answer any questions you may have."

The story, for once, seemed to have genuinely reached Bucky. Even Rumlow looked mildly surprised at the amount of expression on his face, especially because it was something besides fear or confusion. Natasha felt like that was a good place to end, and let the silence settle between the three of them. Grateful that Rumlow understood her intentions, she gave him a brief nod of thanks when she caught his eye. She received the smallest of nods in return, and that was good enough for both of them. They were content, for the moment, to sit in the wordless peace, Rumlow holding one of Bucky's hands as a grounding, stabilizing presence and Natasha just sitting, remaining open without becoming overbearing.

"Did you...remember?"

The English was halting, tentative, and the first she'd heard from him; it was a question in more than just word, but in permission as well. Bucky wasn't sure if he was allowed to speak without being directly asked a question. But the fact that he was willing to risk it meant that he felt safe, which was a huge step forward for everyone. "I did," Natasha answered simply. "Not all at once, but I remembered."

Bucky fell silent again, bowing his head until his curtain of brown hair, matted and clumped and tangled, fell forward and hid his face. Natasha let him digest the information however he needed to. There was no telling how fried his thought process was after everything that had been done to him.

"Did...did it...hurt? The...the remembering?"

She shrugged a bit, and tried not to put too much weight into the answer. "At times. But in the end, I'm glad I went through it, because it's so much better to have come out the other side. It was tough to get through, but I'm stronger for it and a better person. And I think you could be, too."

It seemed to be what Bucky needed to hear. A shiver went through him, and something unintelligible crossed his face. After several minutes of quiet, Natasha was starting to ponder getting up and leaving Bucky with his tangled thoughts and allowing him to sort them out on his own. But then, Bucky spoke up for the final time: "S-Sorry."

"Sorry? What for?"

With eyes flickering between her face, her shoulder, and his own lap, Bucky very slowly, very gingerly lifted a hand and ever-so-slightly brushed his fingers against her shoulder. In an instant, the scene came back to her: fire and brimstone and smoke and ash. Screaming and sirens and loud bangs of explosions and bullets discharging and clangs of metal on metal. The smell of soot and tar and ash and charcoal and blood and death. The feeling of her heart pounding in her chest like a hummingbird's wings, the sharp, rending, tearing sensation of a bullet ripping through her flesh, the sudden explosion of warmth as blood bubbled over and spilled out and ran down her skin and soaked her clothing, the tacky feeling of it cooling against her and making her shirt stick to her wound-

"It's not your fault. Your mind wasn't your own." Reaching out, taking Bucky's hand, she offered him a reassuring smile at the panic that flooded his features again. "But it is now. And I promise, once this hard part is over, you will have the most amazing experiences of your life." Clearly, Bucky was still taking it all in, absorbing this new information and trying to figure out just what he wanted and if he was allowed to have it and if he was, how he'd go about getting it...or even figuring out what it was he wanted. Well, to know what he wanted, he needed to have different experiences, so he could start to build new memories and potentially jog some older ones. "You know what? How about we start now? When was the last time your hair got washed? And I don't mean someone just hosing you down and rinsing the blood out, I mean...shampoo and combing it."

Rumlow saw the confusion and fear return to Bucky's expression, and clarified for Natasha: "Yeah, bathing has pretty much always consisted of hosing the blood off and letting him drip-dry. It's hardly been pleasant."

If the news troubled Natasha or angered her, she took it in stride and kept it to herself. "Okay," she said simply, rising and turning back to Bucky. "I'm cleaning you up, and it's going to be your first experience with something pleasant in this lifetime."

"Rogers is going to be pissed that he didn't get to claim the honor."

"Rogers owes me a few lifetimes, so I don't really care if he's upset about it."

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve walked back into the room frustrated, annoyed, and barely holding it all in. The agents outside had taken far more of his time than he would have liked, reiterating everything twice and going in endless circles before he was finally able to make sure everything was clear and excuse himself again. These men and women had their orders, and hopefully, after how many times he repeated them, they could keep it all clear in their heads. Still, it had been an unpleasant twenty minutes, one Steve didn't wish to repeat any time soon. He didn't even have the luxury of some quiet time alone with his friend in which progress could be made. Bucky was a stone wall, shrinking from any attempts to communicate and scampering back to his handler at every such effort. Rumlow shielded him and protected him, and Steve only ever felt locked out and excluded whenever he was around the two of them. But he'd never stop trying. Not until he reached Bucky and told him how sorry he was and how he would have done anything to save Bucky from this torment and how he would have gladly taken his place a thousand times over-

He made it a few steps into the room before he realized there was only one person in it where there had been three before. Starting badly, eyes scouring the room for traces of Natasha and Bucky, Steve almost jumped again when Rumlow laughed. The smaller man simply jerked his head in the direction of the bathroom off the room, where the door was wide open and light was spilling out. Most of the tension bled out of Steve again when his sight confirmed that Natasha and Bucky were still there, but there was still an edge to his voice when he turned to Rumlow and demanded, "What the hell is going on here?"

"Relax, Cap, just a little bonding between Winter and Black Widow."

"How did she get through to him? And is she...?"

"Yup. She convinced him to let her wash his hair. I think it was offending her more than us."

By now, Steve's gaze was solely fixed on the pair in the bathroom. Bucky still looked uncertain, but his body was significantly more relaxed as Natasha guided his head under the faucet in the sink and rinsed the soap out of his hair with warm water. She worked her fingers through the wet tangled, separating larger chunks and tugging at snarls to let them hang straight again. Shutting off the water, she grabbed a towel from the plastic bar on the wall and immediately caught Bucky's hair in it, squeezing the excess moisture out of it and letting him stand up again. She looked completely at ease, without any sign of being on alert for an attack. And Bucky...Bucky just looked like he had no idea what to do with himself.

They came back out into the room, leaving the towel in the bathroom and bringing a comb. Natasha managed to persuade Bucky to sit in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs instead of on the bed while she began working the slim comb through his hair. It obviously helped Bucky to be closer to Rumlow, even if the ex-HYDRA agent for all intents and purposes let him be. He seemed to be taking everything in stride, whereas Steve was still caught in the shock of it all.

"Natasha...how-?"

"I just talked to him. We have, ah... _shared life experience_ to bond over, a little bit."

Of course. Natasha, with her past, could certainly relate to Bucky when it came to experiencing one's mind not being their own and being made to do things that they didn't want to do. The details were fuzzy and highly-classified, but the gist of it was fairly well-known. For Bucky to hear that someone else had undergone similar treatment and understood was one thing, but to see how well they had come out the other side had to be inspiring. It could give him hope to spend some time with Natasha, and maybe it could get him talking and get his mind moving again. And now that he thought about it, there was someone else on their team that Bucky could potentially relate to.

"Hey, Natasha, could you bring Clint next time you come visit?"

 

 

 

Вы помните его?: Do you remember him?  
Нет!: No!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have asked, and so you have received! Here is another chapter for you lovely ladies and gents out there who asked so kindly, left me wonderful comments, and gave me kudos. Thank you to you all-hopefully I can get a few more of these out for you!


	3. Chapter 3

The days were passing quickly. They had good days sometimes; they had bad days other times. Some days were flat-out awful, and Rumlow had to resort to certain code words and phrases that only he knew to subdue Winter. Hours later, sometimes minutes, sometimes seconds, it was all random, really, Winter would come out of it, shaken, upset, and unsure of what to do with himself. Rumlow did his best to comfort him, but there was only so much he could offer. There were no missions to offer to direct Winter's focus, no objectives to complete, not even an outlet for his physical energy. In addition, his mind was a tumultuous mess from going so long without cryofreeze or a forcible wipe to erase his memories, and now, Winter and Bucky were at war with each other. Rumlow didn't envy him the battlefield that his mind was turning into; Winter was losing all control, and helplessly looking to Rumlow himself for guidance and aid. It sent a lance of guilt straight through his chest when he realized that he could offer less and less and less every day.

"You should talk to him."

Winter looked up at him with that quiet desperation in his eyes, the sort that he got when he was on the verge of a panic attack and he was trying really, really hard not to have it. "Rogers, I mean," Rumlow clarified, unsure if the mention of the blonde super-soldier would give Winter something to think about and calm him down or dredge up memories and make him even more anxious. And of course, Winter gave him neither reaction: instead, he only looked as perplexed as he ever did with his limited expressions, obviously trying to puzzle out what Rumlow could possibly want him talking to Rogers for.

"He won't hurt you," Rumlow finally said, choosing to push forward while Winter's brain seemed to be hesitating to short-circuit. "He actually really cares about you...and he might be able to help."

Winter was silent for a long time: so long that Rumlow got a crick in his neck with his head turned to keep an eye on him. Recently, they'd managed to persuade him to start sitting in one of the chairs, instead of on the floor. It had taken some coaxing and some reassurance and finally just flat-out giving him an order and then leaving him be long enough that he figured out that nothing was going to jump out and bite him. Winter still very much preferred to sit on the bed, where he could always cheat some skin contact out of Rumlow (for which he was desperately starved) but everyone thought it might be better for him to start reclaiming and understanding his own personal space once again. Everyone, that was, except for Winter.

"He hurt me, though."

Oh, God, what was he thinking of? Rumlow found himself giving a heavy, rough sigh and wondering where to even start on this one. Yeah, he did it because you were attacking him because we told you to because we kidnapped you, erased your memories, treated you like you were a thing and not a person, and made you into the perfect living weapon to be a slave to the demands of arguably the most evil and longest-running organization to ever pop up in history. Right. Perfect. That'll fix everything! Raising a hand to rub at his eyes, catching himself halfway there and lowering it again (his arms were still heavily bandaged, and extremely sensitive despite skin grafts and ointments and pain medications and a week or so of healing,) Rumlow took another deep inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale...it wasn't getting him anywhere, he realized, except worrying Winter, who was starting to squirm in his chair and breathe through his mouth and let his eyes rapidly flicker back and forth around the room like someone was going to jump out at him any second. The best thing he could do right now was talk, Rumlow figured, pretty much regardless of what he was saying, because any lifeline he could throw Winter to cling to was worth a shot.

"He only hurt you because he had to," he sighed, closing his dry eyes and willing to the sting to go away. It burned sometimes, dreadfully so; it was easier to close them and wait for his damaged tear ducts to catch up again. "You both hurt each other, remember? And neither of you really wanted to."

"Then...why did we?"

"Ah, God..." At this point, Rumlow was unable to resist, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Excruciating pain exploded from the points of contact on both his nose and his fingers, radiating up his entire forearm and across his entire face as the burning and throbbing took over again. Squeezing his eyes shut painfully tight, until the purple and yellow and green stars danced in front of his vision, he couldn't help a little groan of aggravation. Not even at the fact that he had to answer these questions, but at the whole situation in general. "It's such a long story, Winter...and we're both done...so done...I'll tell you when I get out of here, okay? When I'm as healed as I'm going to be and you and me have time."

"What will happen then?"

It was such an innocent question, posed with liquid sapphire eyes, that even Rumlow with his cold, dead, blackened, shriveled heart felt terrible at the notion that he might not be able to uphold that hope. Rumlow was kicking himself for ever lying to this poor creature, reduced to such a miserable wretch that he eagerly gulped down his falsehoods just for the misguided sense of safety and love and trust that he couldn't ever remember having but desperately craved none the less-

"Will it...be like you promised?"

As if it couldn't make him feel any Goddamn worse-!

"Will you...get me out? Take me away from them? Take...take care of me?"

Rumlow's throat was rapidly closing, but he didn't dare call for a nurse. His tear ducts had finally caught up and even gotten a little ahead, and for once, he was cursing it. The pain was agonizing, but he reached out his arm anyway, past the security of the soft(ish) bed, over the edge, out across the gap, to Winter, where he held it as far as he could, turning his gaze up to his charge, his project, his pet, his soldier, his Winter-

"You promised."

Swallowing down as quickly and as hard as he could, he still couldn't force away the lump in his throat keeping him from breathing right, nor could he will away the moisture gathering on his eyelids. God, his eyes were going to feel like sandpaper and bare salt for hours after this, wasting all the saline he had on this emotional bullshit-! But then Winter spoke again, reminding him of his promise, and then none of it mattered. He just took his hand, jerked his head back once towards the bed, letting Winter climb up with obvious relief shuddering through his body, and wrapped as much of his arms around Winter as he could. They had a system by now: they knew exactly where to situate themselves so as to find the least-painful spot for both of them. "Yeah," Rumlow was finally able to choke out, and he could _feel_ the tremor go through Winter as he melted in his arms. "Yeah, 'cuz...'cuz I promised. You and me, Winter, we...we're gonna go away someplace. Far away. Just you and me. Just us. No more missions, no more Hydra...just...us..."

He was almost relaxed, almost content: he just still shifted a little bit here and there, still holding onto one last thing to ask: "What about...Steve?"

"We don't have to go far if you still want to see Steve," Rumlow murmured, bending his neck without thinking and pressing his cracked, chapped lips against Winter's forehead. "But we can go wherever you want to go."

That was what finally unlocked the last bit of tension, and Winter finally settled in Rumlow's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is long overdue, not even edited, and probably pretty out of character, but I don't even care. Enjoy the whump, folks.


	4. Chapter 4

"Cap."

"Rumlow."

Despite the cold, curt greetings, the two men had come to some manner of a shaky truce over the past week. Bucky had finally stabilized somewhat, quietly accepting Steve's presence without issue. It would seem that the flood of memories overcoming him were beginning to taper off into more manageable chunks, but he still refused to speak about what he could recall versus what he couldn't. In the same vein, Rumlow also refused to volunteer any information he had about Bucky's treatment at Hydra's hands. The situation was infinitely frustrating, especially for Steve. Not knowing anything at all when the two best sources of information were sitting mere feet in front of him was exhausting to bear. Still, he would bear it: for Bucky's sake. Any headway at all was still headway, and Steve stubbornly clung to the belief that Bucky would let him in eventually, he just had to be patient.

Rumlow, on the other hand, received grudging courtesy at best. If not for how much Bucky obviously trusted him, and how decently Rumlow had been treating Bucky, Steve would have stopped the morphine drip and just let Rumlow stew in his agony for hours. A suitable punishment, he thought, for allowing this to happen to Bucky. Natasha advised against it, opting to work the interrogation angle. If Steve could get inside Rumlow's head a little more, they stood a much better chance of gleaning useful information from him. Steve just wanted retribution for Bucky. Maybe it was because he felt like he needed to bring down the hammer of justice, and leaving even one Hydra agent alive, no matter how incapacitated, was just not his style. Or maybe it was because he felt obligated to do something, anything, to make up for his crushing, bitter failure to save Bucky.

But as usual, nothing of the sort came to pass. Steve flopped down in a chair that was empty increasingly often these days as Bucky explored his newfound independence with surprising boldness. The cheap plastic was hard, and dug into his spine, but hell if he was taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Far too intimate for someone he didn't like in the least. "How you feeling?" he asked, keeping his tone carefully neutral and polite.

"Still just peachy," Rumlow snickered. "As long as the morphine keeps coming, I keep feeling awesome."

"And how about Bucky?" Since they both knew exactly why he was there.

"Good, good. I got him to take a shower by himself yesterday night after you left. Fastest damn shower I've ever witnessed, but he did it."

"How's he eating?"

"Well enough. Stomachs's still getting used to food, I think. He picks at it a lot, trying to figure out what he likes." Staring up at the ceiling, Rumlow let his eyes glaze over and lose focus, seemingly lost in his own head for a moment. Steve let him; hopefully Rumlow's train of thought would stray to something useful, and his lack of attention would allow it to simply slip past his lips without filter or censor. He tried not to think too hard about where Rumlow's thoughts could be leading. Hydra and its operations weren't pretty.

"He likes mangoes."

It was completely out of nowhere, frustratingly useless, but it tugged at Steve's heartstrings all the same. To hear that Bucky liked something, and that someone had gone to enough lengths to figure out what it was that he enjoyed...it was just a shame that that person happened to be Brock Rumlow. "I had one once...in my bag, on a longer mission...just needed something to keep my blood sugar up. Gave him a slice, feeling bad, making him sit there watching me eat and he hasn't had food in God knows how long...he loved it. Probably tasted better than ambrosia to him right then and there. Chased all the gunpowder and blood and grit outta his mouth." Pausing, inexplicably chuckling a little to himself, Rumlow closed his eyes and added in a voice even softer, "Always made sure I had some for him after that...he could only handle a bite or two or his stomach would get upset, but he loved it so much I couldn't say no. That was how he knew it was me. Forgot my face, my name, even my damn voice...but he remembered the taste, somewhere in his head, and he knew it was me, and he knew I was good to him and he didn't have to be afraid of me."

Words failed him at the moment. A part of him wanted to thank Rumlow, wanted to be his friend and help him, in return for doing whatever he could for Bucky. For treating him like a human, for giving him something to hold onto, for giving him hope and relief in a time and place where he had none. But another part screamed at him: _This man had as much to do with Bucky's imprisonment as the rest of them! He still ordered him to kill, still kept him confined, still allowed him to be subjected to this torture and still allowed pain to come to him!_ To which the other part of him reminded himself that Rumlow was just doing the best he could with what he had, and weren't they all, and if he'd done much more he wouldn't have been allowed to see Bucky, and then Bucky would have had nothing...it made his thoughts spin and his head ache.

"Don't ever give him milk."

Steve dreaded the follow-up to that remark, but said nothing to deter it. Instead, he placed his face in one hand, massaging his sinuses with his fingers as he closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and waited for Rumlow to continue. The pads of his fingers, rough and calloused from heavy work with his hands, scratched at the more sensitive skin of his face, but he couldn't find it in himself to care as Rumlow resumed speaking. "Pierce used to give it to him," he explained. "And it almost always happened when he was trying to convince him to kill again, to complete his mission, to obey whatever orders he was giving him now...and Pierce was good enough to make Winter feel guilty about not obeying. Could make him do anything, he said, anything at all...but never really won his loyalty. Only ever his fear. He was always afraid of Pierce. And milk is Pierce's thing. Er, _was_ Pierce's thing. So, um...don't give it to him. Not unless you want a meltdown."

If he took his hands away from his face, Rumlow would see exactly how close he was to falling apart. And Steve didn't want that. So he kept his expression hidden as much as he could so they both could pretend he was handling this better than he actually was, trying to come to terms with what he was hearing enough that he could keep it together until he was by himself so he could have his own little meltdown in private. Something about the mention of Secretary Pierce was only making it harder to control himself. The idea that someone so high up, so influential, someone who had played the part so well, could have been so twisted and evil...he recalled his conversation with Nick Fury once again in stunning clarity, recalling the precise look of disgust on Nick's face when he snarled that Pierce had declined a Nobel Peace Prize, stating that peace was not an achievement, it was a responsibility. Such poignant words, and to have been furthering the complete opposite agenda for so long...it hit way too close to home for Steve.

"Look, Cap...if you wanted...I mean, if you're willing to take my word for it...to gain a little more trust from Winter..."

"Out with it, Rumlow." Whatever it was, he could at least listen. If nothing else, it would distract his mind from the horrific, tearing, ripping, mutilating thoughts racing through it shredding him from the inside out.

"Bring a mango next time. Call him Winter. Let him have some, let him come to you, just...that's all he knows now, you're going to have to speak his language if you want him to respond-"

"Why are you telling me this?" Steve snapped. On the surface, he still wanted to have the front up and solid to maintain the appearance of hating Rumlow for all that he'd done. He'd never confess that there was a part of him that yearned to be grateful to him for showing Bucky what was likely the only genuine kindness he'd ever received during Hydra's dreadful reign over his body and mind.

"Because I think you'd be good for him," Rumlow admitted, voice dragging out in a begrudging sigh. "He needs the kind of love and help you can give him, Cap. It'd be selfish of me to try to keep him for myself...but Goddamn, I'm gonna try. In an ideal world, you two would be best bros again, you'd give him every resource at your disposal to help him get better, but it would always be me he came home to at the end of the day. But I know this world ain't perfect. And I know you'd treat him better than gold. So, for his good, if he'll go with you of his own accord...I think you can help him. And I'd be a right piece of shit if I took that away from him because we're standing on opposite sides of the fence."

Steve was well past astonished at Rumlow's confession. Never in a hundred years had he expected to hear such a selfless admission, especially coming from this man. It tore at Steve in ways he'd rather not acknowledge. He needed to confront the knowledge that Rumlow genuinely cared for Bucky...and that Bucky wasn't really Bucky anymore. That Bucky was now Winter, and that he was quite attached to Rumlow, and that Bucky might be buried too deep under Winter to ever surface again, and that Rumlow was enough of a human to actually care about Bucky, and...

"Will he miss you?" Steve asked, surprised at how composed he sounded even as he was unable to bring himself to look at Rumlow.

The response he received was preceded by a frustrated, helpless sigh. "Who knows," Rumlow groaned. "I think on some level the familiarity is a comfort...and he kinda knows I treated him well. Hard to say if it's me or the kindness he's latched onto. I'll come right out with it, though, Rogers: I'll certainly miss him."

It was another revelation that rocked Steve to his core. The entire time, he'd been struggling in his own mind to keep Rumlow completely painted as the enemy: the heartless villain who'd sat by and idly watched, perhaps with amusement, as his best friend was tortured for decades. Rumlow was tearing that facade down, though, brick by brick, revealing that while he may have been involved with awful people, there was still a shred of humanity they hadn't managed to eradicate from him just yet. And Bucky...Bucky had seen it, and clung to it desperately, sensing that it was his only hope. It very well may have been all that saved him at times.

"I wish it was so simple as letting him decide," Rumlow added, only after a lengthy, pregnant pause in which both of them anguished over their individual, internal turmoils. "But he's scared of you, Rogers, and even if he wasn't, his brain's not in the right place right now. You're intimidating to him anyway...the ultimate target for him, now supposed to be his savior. And he's supposed to remember you, because you were his best friend and comrade and you guys were the Dynamic Duo saving the day and all this shit...but the last time he thought he remembered you-wasn't even sure-his brain got blown to hell. So he doesn't want to remember. But he feels like he should. So he can't quite tell us what he wants to do. I'd feel so much better if he did, though...'cuz then maybe I could sleep at night, knowing that at least he's happy."

Steve couldn't take it anymore. Shoving the chair back, he bolted to his feet and made for the door. He barely made it halfway there before his momentum crested and broke like a wave attempting to break on the shore but fizzling out while still struggling to cross the shallows. Petering out rapidly, Steve found himself stranded in the middle of the cheap vinyl tile forming a bridge between Rumlow's bed and the door. It couldn't have been more than ten feet, but right now it seemed a vast and unconquerable wasteland that would swallow him whole if he ventured out into its treacherous folds. Coming to an unwilling stop as his feet firmly planted and refused to go any farther, Steve found himself shaking his head helplessly and settling his hands on his hips. At a loss, it was all he could do to avoid turning around to face Rumlow. If he looked at the guy now, he'd lose it. His mind would absolutely explode, just like Bucky's did from time to time. He wouldn't be able to take it.

Like this, though, at least he didn't have to have that visual smack in front of him...taunting him, pushing him, needling him. Like this, with his back to the trigger and his head down low, he could lull himself into enough of a false sense of security and safety that he could speak. "I promise," he began, slowly but with purpose and intent, "that from this moment on, every single thing I say and do is for him. I'm totally out of the equation. No more acting on my own feelings, no more pushing my own agenda, no more sparing myself and my own ends...he comes first. Bottom line. And he says he'll be happiest with you, then...I need to respect that."

He still couldn't bring himself to face Rumlow, but the darkly-tanned man seemed to understand. Steve could just picture him nodding slowly, his gaze uncomfortably flickering around to land anywhere but on Steve as he contemplated what had just been said between them, swallowing occasionally to try to keep his throat open enough to breathe. Even the look on his face was crystal clear in his mind's eye, something in between helplessness and resignation. Like he wouldn't have come to terms with it in his heart yet, even if his mind had already acknowledged that it was the right thing to do.

"I can promise that, too," Rumlow finally admitted, and the breath Steve hadn't realized he'd been holding rushed out of him in one long whoosh. "Maybe not say it as nice as you did...but if we're fighting over him that doesn't help him. Truce for now."

At this, Steve was able to turn halfway back, just enough to show Rumlow his profile, and give him a quick nod of thanks. It was all he could do, but it seemed to be enough. A weight had lifted from his shoulders, and his legs didn't feel like they were weighted with a hundred pounds of lead. The steel band around his chest constricting his breathing was gone, and the tension radiating from the back of his neck straight through his skull fading to a dull ache around his eyes was fading. This felt like breaking through a wall and finally being able to move forward again, and as much as it crushed Steve to cede a tiny victory to Rumlow, he could at least take solace that the other man felt the same way.

"So, you comin' back tomorrow?" Rumlow asked as Steve finally resumed walking to the door. "Gonna come visit me again?"

Pausing briefly with the knob in his hand, Steve responded, "Yeah," after a few seconds' silence. "Yeah, I'll be back tomorrow."

Rumlow only nodded slowly for a few more seconds. Then, a gentle reminder:

"Bring a mango."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my Lord this took me so long. I'm so sorry. *hands out cookies to everyone still hanging on*


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking mangoes, man.
> 
> I have no excuse except that my job ate my soul. It's still chewing, so have this before it finishes the job. And now, I return to battle!!

Standing in the middle of the grocery store staring at the produce, Steve never thought he'd even consider the idea. It was ludicrous to entertain anything out of Brock Rumlow's mouth as anything resembling the truth...or at least, anything that was clean, no-strings-attached, and in no way furthering the other man's own agenda. But here he was, gazing unblinkingly at tropical fruit with the dark green skin and the bright orange flesh, wondering exactly how many he should get. How long did mangoes last before they start to become overripe and eventually rotten? How often would he be going back to the hospital, mango in tow, before Bucky-Winter-trusted him? How effective would this even be? Several minutes of internal debating hadn't earned him anything but some odd glances, though, so Steve finally grabbed four, tossed them in a plastic bag, and tried his best to simply set the matter aside in his mind as resolved and move along with the rest of his day.

The next day, when he returned to the hospital, he couldn't deny the churning pit of dread in his stomach. The entirety of last night had been spent awake, wide awake, tossing and turning and imagining every single way this could possibly pan out. None of it was helpful or productive, but there he had lain, unable to close his eyes for a moment's rest. It was an awful night, and at one point Steve had in fact just given up, gotten up, and gone for his run early. The sooner he got up and got this over with, the sooner he could have some answers in front of him and at least know what to expect from the whole encounter. It was the not knowing that was killing him, he was sure.

Bypassing the security guards with nothing but a curt nod, Steve ducked into the room to see Rumlow in his usual spot, with Winter right next to him, both of them seemingly engaged in conversation. The look on Winter's face was strangely thoughtful, like he was hearing something new but that intrigued him; Rumlow looked so endlessly patient that Steve was actually taken aback. There was a yielding softness to him that Steve had never fathomed before, and never would have put to Rumlow. Winter didn't lie, though...the way he sat, so still and silent, not vibrating with nervous energy, not twitching towards his weapons, not hyperactive and anxious and unable to relax...it was telling, and it was tearing Steve apart.

Clearing his throat got their attention, fortunately. Words failed the famous Captain America at the moment. Winter looked suddenly frightened, like a child with his hand in the cookie jar when his mother walked in; Rumlow just nodded slowly, apparently just going to let the conversation linger in the background where it had ended for the time being. "Welcome back, Cap," he greeted dryly, and if Steve didn't know better, he'd think that there was just a little bit less bite to those words today.

This time, when he cleared his throat, it was necessary to make room for the words he had yet to speak to emerge. "Thanks," was all he managed to start with, but he was able to draw the rest forth by holding up the plastic bag he'd spent so long debating over. "I brought a snack," he explained, already beating his own head against the wall in his head for how lame it sounded. He'd get to following through on that self-punishment later. "Figured you guys could do with something besides hospital food."

"Sweet of you." There was nothing sweet to the tone of Rumlow's voice, but Steve hardly expected anything else. Forcibly blocking it from registering in his mind as Rumlow turned to Winter and murmured to him in Russian, Steve set the bag down on one of the little side tables next to Rumlow's bed and pulled out one of the mangoes to start. Amazed that his hands weren't shaking, he decided to run with it and push his luck to hopefully prolong the winning streak. A pocket knife was all he'd brought along, but he knew it would be more than fine. It had served him well for years and years and years, and all he'd have to do afterwards was wipe it off.

The skin came off easily; the soft, ripe orange flesh of the fruit peeled away from the pit just as smoothly. Steve handed half of the mango to Bucky first, noticing the way his best friend's eyes flickered over him, all of him, looking for the slightest indication of foul play before gingerly accepting the proffered food. He still hesitated, though, especially balking when Rumlow shook his head and waved Steve off, dismissing him with complaints of pain everywhere and trying not to move too much and he'd just eaten anyway...Steve shrugged and took a bite out of the mango, figuring he had more where that came from if Rumlow changed his mind. At this, Bucky seemed to grow bold again, but he still took a quick sniff before nibbling at the edges of the slice.

He froze the second it hit his tongue. Completely still, completely silent, eyes wide and staring at a blank spot on the wall like someone had flipped on a projector and was showing him a movie only he could see. Rumlow's attention was snagged immediately; Steve, perhaps out of some sense of politeness, apparently tried to ignore it for a moment before it became impossible to ignore. Of course, Rumlow was no help, simply staring right at Bucky like Bucky stared at the wall, and Steve wanted to knock each of their skulls in to try to regain some sense in the room-

"I remember this."

Finally, Rumlow and Steve broke the staring chain to give each other quick glances of inquisition. Neither one had any knowing in their eyes, though, so they both turned back to Bucky. It was Rumlow who prompted, "Remember what?"

It wasn't Rumlow that Bucky looked to, though: it was Steve. And the expression he wore then was terrifyingly open, horrifyingly vulnerable, and Steve felt the twist and wrench in his chest that meant that it was hitting him, that he could crush Bucky so easily right now if he breathed wrong, that this was something fragile and precious and should be protected at all costs, and he didn't even know what it was-

"We were on that mission...you remember, when we had to raid that convoy. We were trying to intercept Hydra weapons. But the first truck we hit was a decoy. Had mangoes in it. Under the crates, we found the weapons, but God...they were buried deep. We ate a bunch of them because we didn't see fresh fruit much...first time I'd ever had a mango."

If Steve thought that the sensation of someone reaching into his chest and pulling at his heart to rip it right out of his chest couldn't get any worse, he was wrong. He only hoped that Bucky wouldn't mistake the heartbroken, borderline-tearful expression he wore as somehow directed at him. This was the most words his friend had managed to string together at once since they'd been reunited. All in English, and with that little hint of an accent coming back through the deadpan Russian delivery he'd been so accustomed to...it gave Steve hope that Bucky was still in there, still fighting, and still had a chance. It left him speechless, because all he wanted to do right now was wrap his arms around Bucky and never, ever, ever let go.

For once, Rumlow was silent, as well. It unnerved Steve to ponder what was going through the other man's head, but he figured that it was just as well it went unspoken between them. He'd more than likely find out sooner or later, given that Rumlow's tongue tended to loosen under the influence of an elevated morphine drip, and it was probably better that that conversation didn't happen in front of Bucky. Bucky had plenty to deal with in his own head right now, and Brock Rumlow ought to be the least of his worries.

Several long, pregnant seconds passed; none of them dared move for fear of utterly shattering under the weight of emotions they didn't know how to deal with. Bucky was the first one to break, suddenly flushing and ducking his head to hide behind the curtain of long, dark hair that had been allowed to grow freely during his time under Hydra's thumb. With the stillness banished like fog burning off over a lake, Steve felt safe to breathe again. Noticing Rumlow's gaze darting back and forth between the two, looking a bit more alert and engaged, he opted to step in now rather than later: "What is it, Buck?"

Bucky just shook his head then, brushing his hair back with his free hand-the metal one-and avoiding Steve's face. If Captain America didn't know any better, he'd almost think that that was shame coloring Bucky's features-

"I just...I remembered something else..."

And that was when it hit Steve, and the breath caught in his chest all over again. Yes, there was something else from that same day-occurring long after dark, far away from trucks smuggling weapons and platoons of soldiers cheering another victory. It had happened in a tiny, dark tent under piles of blankets, where they thought they were safe but never truly let their guard down. When everything was silent except them, when everything was still except them, when everything was safe except them. It was the first time Steve had kissed Bucky, and the only other time he'd been that terrified was when he thought he'd lost him. For all he knew, he was facing losing him all over again with the gesture, but the only thing worse would be if he actually did lose Bucky and he hadn't shared how he really felt. Fortunately, Bucky had had had exactly the same sentiments. Steve hadn't thought he'd remember...but minds were a funny thing to play with.

"You remember...that night?" Steve asked, and when Bucky's eyes met his again, the connection between them suddenly erupted into a smoldering heat that hadn't passed between them for decades. Rumlow might have an inkling what was happening-he might not have a clue-but all that mattered to Steve was looking into Bucky's eyes and knowing, _knowing,_ in his heart of hearts, that they were both talking about the same thing and answering the same question and one hundred percent in sync as they always had been when Bucky finally responded after a shaky, unstable breath in a voice that was polar opposite in confidence and vehemence:

"Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cookies (and mangoes ) for everyone still reading. And welcome to all new readers! Civil War feels, anyone?


	6. Chapter 6

A month had passed, and Steve still felt like the only person making progress was Brock Rumlow.

Bucky still only answered to "Winter." Natasha, and now Clint, could sometimes eek a positive reaction out of him if they managed to spend a decent amount of time with him and got him comfortable enough to talk. Steve himself was still a sleepless, worry-riddled wreck who spent all of his spare time with Bucky in a desperate attempt to make things better. And Rumlow, Brock _fucking_ Rumlow, was now up and walking.

His skin grafts had taken; new ones had just been harvested and attached, and now most of him had skin again. His broken bones were healed enough to start lightly using his limbs. Watching him improve every day was maddening for Steve, but all he could do was sit on his hands and watch and swallow the rage. Perhaps he shouldn't have felt such a surge of satisfaction when Rumlow stumbled and had to catch himself hard on the railings to avoid crashing to the floor...but here he was, fighting down a smirk and trying not to question just how bad a person it made him.

He justified it to himself by thinking that he just wanted Rumlow to suffer as much as Bucky had. An eye for an eye. Hardly better, he supposed, but maybe a step up from wanting to see him in pain just for the sake of it. That would be stooping to Rumlow's level. It was even worse when Rumlow collapsed in bed again, sweating profusely in odd patches because some of his skin hadn't fully integrated yet, and Bucky was Winter in his head at that point and dove for him in a panic and Rumlow was so gentle and so soft and so yielding with him...it made Steve want to take his face in his hands and scream. It was so wrong on so many levels, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

The only silver lining he could find to this cloud was that it did separate Rumlow and Bucky. Steve had started bringing someone else with him, anyone else, solely for the purpose of babysitting one while he spoke with the other. He continued to bring Bucky food, books, music, anything he could think of that might jog a memory. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, and it was a total crapshoot as to what might be dredged up from the depths of Bucky's frazzled mind. There were little slivers of light starting to shine through the mucky exterior, so Steve chased them down. When with Rumlow, he tried to wheedle any information out of him that he could. With success rates low and irritation levels high, Steve was tempted to just trip Rumlow as he went to take another step and let gravity do the rest. Every now and then, though, he'd get something useful. And then the cycle would begin anew.

Except today.

Steve walked in and Rumlow greeted him with, oddly, "Glad you're here, big guy." Immediately taken aback, Steve abruptly halted mid-step, instantly suspicious. Rumlow just laughed though, and shuffled forward another step between the metal guide rails that let him support himself on his arms a bit to help him walk. Reluctantly, Steve observed that the hesitant, shuffling steps were getting smoother. "Nah, don't look at me like that," Rumlow continued, taking another step forward with more ease than Steve would have liked to see. "I actually thought we were gonna be friends for a little while there!"

"You know I don't trust you as far as I can throw you," Steve replied shortly, squaring up his feet and folding his arms across his chest. "So what could possibly have you so happy to see me?"

"Got a favor to ask," the darker-skinned man grunted, heaving forward another three steps in the time Steve had been talking. "And I think you'll be happy to hear it, too. Involves your boy Bucky."

"What about Bucky?" And it took Steve that long to realize that Rumlow had, in fact, referred to him as Bucky, and not as Winter.

"Well, here's the thing, Steve," Rumlow sighed, pausing at the end of the track to breathe for a moment. It would seem that it was still an enormous effort to continue walking, and Rumlow wanted to be able to save his breath to spit it all out at once. Jaw slack as air wheezed in down a still-damaged throat, Rumlow leaned heavily against the rail as he locked eyes with Steve and, still breathing hard, told him,

"I know I'm about done here. As soon as I'm walking a little better, it's off to jail and then court and then prison for me. And we already talked about how He can't come with me." As much as Steve wanted to interject, he settled for sharpening his gaze in prompting as Rumlow stopped to pant again, struggling to repay the oxygen debts his blood currently owed his lungs and heart. Waiting was torture, but Steve knew it would be worth it in the end. So he endured. "I know my days with him are numbered. And that fucking sucks. I wish I could stay and keep every one of my promises to him. But I'm not strong enough to run away with him yet, and they're not going to let me get there before they ship me off. He's coming back, more and more every day...and I know you don't see it yet, but I do. He's not the same, not the Winter I knew way back when and not the Winter I knew after you dropped a Goddamn building on my face and not even the Winter he was when he was half him and half the guy he used to be. I know he-your Bucky-he's coming back, and he's gonna win. Guy's a fighter, Cap, there's a reason we had to keep sticking his brain in the blender to make him do what we wanted. He kept trying to claw his way back out. Well, here he is, and I'm actually really hoping that when he busts out and I get taken away, well...our two personal journeys hit that crossroad at the same time and we can part ways on good terms.

"But it's still killing me. I know he'll be fine now, but it's still absolutely fucking killing me. Here's where you come in. I want you to promise me that when we have to go our separate ways that you take him in. You take care of him, you protect him, you help him. You give him everything I never could. And if he hates me, even better, because it means he won't waste his life pining for me. And I have every faith that you'll do all that, Rogers. Because you love him and you hate me. So just promise me-right here, right now-that you'll do that, not for me, but for him. And I'll just go quietly and slip away so it's not stressful for him. You've been with him almost as much as me now, and his brain is starting to lean towards you anyway. It shouldn't be too bad. Just make it painless for him, as much as you can. Be there for him. Never let him go, never let him down. Keep your promises like I never could."

He nodded immediately in acquiescence. Rumlow was right, this was a very easy promise to make. Steve couldn't help but feel like Rumlow was giving Bucky away, like he was still a weapon and a tool to be passed from hand to hand and used, not loved and treasured as a person, but if Rumlow was willing to back off and leave of his own accord and he wanted Bucky to go with him, he wouldn't question it. Rumlow did have a point-S.H.I.E.L.D. was just about ready to uproot him and make federal prison on a remote, maximum-security island his new home. And no, Bucky couldn't stay with him, no matter what Bucky wanted. If they could cooperate for just another week or so to ensure Bucky's comfort, Steve would do just about anything. Anything to see Bucky through this as smoothly as possible.

Steve left before Rumlow finished his physical therapy. Returning to his room, he expected to find Bucky there with Natasha, but instead, he found neither of them. After a quick search, he found both of them on the roof, idly chatting like it was the most normal thing in the world to be sitting cross-legged in the middle of the roof of a hospital discussing in Russian what it meant for your body to be your own. When he was spotted, Steve excused himself again, inviting both of them back down when they were done talking. All four of them convened again in Rumlow's hospital room before they all went their separate ways for the night, and Steve felt a heaviness in his chest that he couldn't explain as he departed, closing the door behind himself as Natasha preceded him down the hall.

That night, Rumlow vanished.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gone without a trace, the hospital staff said. Even S.H.I.E.L.D.'s forensics team had turned up nothing. Steve had seen with his own eyes just how weak Rumlow was-he hadn't done this himself. Not without help. Maybe he was alone now, but he hadn't engineered and executed his escape plan that way. And Bucky, thank God, had disappeared as well, prompting rumors that Rumlow had taken him and used him to get away clean. Those were quickly dispelled, though, when Bucky very obviously showed himself on a security camera in a hallway hours after Rumlow's heart monitor had been disconnected. With tangible proof that Bucky hadn't gone with Rumlow when the former HYDRA agent absconded, Steve could take a deep breath and rest a little easier. Bucky wasn't with Rumlow, who could mess with his head, but neither was he here, where, with nothing stopping them, S.H.I.E.L.D. would pick his brains for anything and everything left intact in there. "Away" was the best place for Bucky right now...Steve just prayed that he was safe and alright. He left a note for Bucky taped to the underside of the little plastic table at the bedside, knowing that his friend would find it and read it and not let anyone else see it. And if Bucky didn't find him then, at least Steve would know it was his choice, and not because he couldn't, and at least he wouldn't feel abandoned.

But Bucky showed up a few days later, looking so innocuous and natural that Steve almost didn't think anything of him sitting on his couch, wearing dark jeans and a gray t-shirt and a black windbreaker with his hair combed and neat and bundled into a little ponytail behind his head. In fact, he just about left the room before his brain caught up and he did a double-take, whipped around, cried out, "Bucky!" and had bolted back across the room.

He remembered himself just arm's length away. Forcing himself to stop, to wait just outside of that little bubble of personal space that Bucky so desperately needed to learn to reinforce again, he could stop his forward momentum but he couldn't stop the emotions from crashing over his face. The wash of hurt, confusion, elation, and utter _relief_ that suddenly swamped him was agonizingly apparent in every one of his cells. He'd been dying for this moment...but for every time he'd replayed it in his head, gone over the scenario a million times, he couldn't, for the life of him, call to mind a single one of those plans now.

And Bucky, bless his soul, negated any reason to.

He launched himself forward, tackling Steve back to the couch and burying his head in his chest, clinging tightly enough that his fingers curled into the fabric of Steve's shirt. "'M sorry," he mumbled, locking his ankles around one of Steve's calves while the blonde super-soldier just lay there in shocked silence. Perhaps he should have feared Winter...but right now, all he saw and heard and felt was Bucky. "I remembered...a lot...a lot sooner than anybody...than I wanted anybody to know. I thought it might be better to...to kind of...finish up with him and...let him go clean before I...came back to you...but it was awful. I didn't want to. 'M sorry..."

It was the apology that jolted Steve's brain back online. Stunned, nothing but white noise in his head for a good few seconds, Steve finally was able to throw his arms around Bucky in return and tell him, "No, it's okay...don't apologize, I get it. He helped you, you wanted to help him...that was how you could do it. I'm not mad, or anything, I just...I'm just glad to have you back."

And wasn't that the truth! For years, Steve had lived with an uncomfortable, nagging sensation constantly wriggling in the back of his mind, telling him that something was terribly wrong. Missing. Gone from him. Far, far away, and riddled with the possibility of never returning. But now, that feeling was gone. Now, when he exhaled, he felt like he managed to do so completely. The tightness in his chest was gone, the nervous energy singing in his veins had dissipated, the feeling of being incomplete had left him, the hole in his core was filled...Bucky was home. And so Steve was home, too.

The words were everything Bucky needed to hear. If it was possible, he burrowed down even deeper into Steve's arms, grabbed onto him tighter, and Steve could swear that Bucky was afraid that, if he let go, Steve might slip away forever. "Hey, hey, it's okay," Steve hurriedly reassured him. "I'm not going anywhere." The reassurance seemed to be what Bucky needed: a quick, but deep breath, and he was settling again, slowly winding down the longer Steve just sat, unmoving, holding him tightly like he'd fall again if he let go. For now, Steve was content to just sit, just like this, and not think about anything else. All of the consequences and the ways to avoid them would have to come later. He wouldn't allow anything to ruin this moment. For the first time in eighty-some years, he had his friend back. He'd be damned if he couldn't enjoy that for a few minutes without spoiling it figuring out just how quickly they were going to have to go into hiding.

Bucky had the same idea, but he wasn't as patient, it would seem. He sat quietly for much longer than Steve thought he would, but eventually, that single long, deep inhale came, and Steve felt his heart drop again at the sound. A part of him dreaded what Bucky was going to say, because he knew he wouldn't want to hear it, but he also knew it needed to be said. They couldn't stay like this forever, as much as he wanted to-sooner or later, s the rest of the world kept on turning, it was going to catch up to them.

"I can't stay long."

He couldn't respond right away. No matter how much you prepared for these sorts of conversations, you were never ready. And there was no shortage of difficult conversations to be had these days. "I know," he finally said, and as much as he wanted to rage against it and come up with a million fantasies to live out and deny, deny, deny the reality of it, his tone was thickly colored with what he had already resigned himself to deep in his heart: this couldn't last, and he'd have to let Bucky go.

"Rumlow's long gone," Bucky continued, words dragging with weariness and equal reluctance to leave. "All he asked was for me to get him out. Clean getaway. And he promised he'd never bother me again. Think he knew...knew I was supposed to be with you. Knew my time as the Soldier was up. Knew I was comin' back a lot quicker and stronger than he wanted." Here, Bucky paused and gave a tiny shrug that Steve couldn't decipher; then he resumed speaking, voice quiet and even but calm. "Think he felt bad he couldn't help me. I'm not gonna lie to ya, Stevie...he was alright. Did what he had to, but never anything more. Never raised a hand to me. Didn't know what I was doing, but...I listened to him. 'Cuz of that."

Steve couldn't speak. The lump in his throat would unravel into a thousands tears and unfair words if he did. He just nodded so that Bucky could feel it without needing to sit up and look at him, and wrapped his arms around him just a little tighter. Fortunately, Bucky just _knew,_ and didn't need explanation of Steve's silence to understand what he was thinking. He just kept going, knowing that Steve needed to hear this, as difficult as it was, and would take it all in stride as punishment for letting Bucky fall. That guilt could be addressed later. For now, they needed to get this out of the way to move on. "He coulda done me dirty, Steve-sold me out, sent me back, put me under again, kept me all for himself...but he didn't. He had all the words to make it happen, and he didn't. Instead, he told me he just needed me to get him away, so far away even I couldn't find him, and gave me this."

Still sitting motionless as Bucky's weight shifted, Steve momentarily loosened his grip to let Bucky maneuver his left arm down to the pocket of his jeans, where he pulled out a folded, crumpled envelope with metal fingers. Steve's heart gave another fold and wrench and twist when Bucky held the envelope up to him, commenting, "It's sealed." And so it was, he noted when he lifted one arm off of Bucky's well-muscled back to accept it. And it had stayed sealed. There was no evidence that the envelope had been opened or tampered with. It was patterned on the inside so it couldn't be seen through. Bucky had no idea what was in this envelope. There wasn't even anything written on the outside. Nothing to give it away. Rumlow was trusting Bucky as a reward for trusting him. It both touched Steve and terrified him. He was realizing that he didn't really know Brock Rumlow at all.

"May I?" he asked, holding up the envelope where Bucky could see it, even sprawled on his chest as he was.

"Yeah, 'course," Bucky replied, sitting up without prompting and then seamlessly rolling off the couch onto his feet. There was a feral grace to his movements now, where the old Bucky would have just unceremoniously risen and thumped off. Now, there was a predatory coil to his gaits, the kind that was second nature now. Bucky was silent and deadly all without a thought now, and there was an unnerving power behind his motions that hadn't been there before. He was captivating to watch, even if the shadows that loomed behind him were horrifying.

"I'm gonna grab a drink from the kitchen, if that's alright."

"Yeah, go ahead." It was formality only; Bucky knew where everything was and knew Steve would always give him free rein over anything in the apartment. So as Bucky kindly moved off into the kitchen to give Steve a moment of privacy, the blonde super-soldier pushed a finger beneath the edge of the envelope and ripped it open along the top seam. The paper parted with a gentle scratch of tearing fibers; Steve withdrew the single folded sheet of looseleaf within, and set the blank envelope aside to read.

_Rogers,_

_You probably know already what's going on. What happened. You're not dumb, and neither is Winter. He's probably told you anyway. I just want you to know that I meant it, every word I ever spoke to him-he won't need to worry about me ever again. Now he just needs to worry about himself. And he's got you to worry about him, too. That'll be good for him, having somebody who knows him that he can trust. And he does know you. He's not afraid of that knowing anymore, either. I think he'll be alright._

_So I took off and I'm leaving him out of it. Remember what we talked about-he's yours now. And that means that you need to know what I know. Because other people know it, too, and I don't think there's a way to break it. you've gotta know all the words and know which ones mean what and what gets him to do what. Not that I think you'll ever use them-but if even one other person knows this shit, you can bet your ass someone else will try to steal it from them and then try to use it. I'm just giving you the list in case they're successful. You gotta know what you're up against, and how to defuse it. And I trust you to keep this list safe until you've memorized it, and then fucking burn it. The less chance of this getting out, the better, and something tells me nobody will be able to get this info outta your brain._

What followed was a list of words. All in Russian, some singular, some in a string, with translations next to them. Rumlow's neat, precise handwriting was a bit shaky, likely from the pain of holding a pen, but still completely legible and recognizable as his own unique penmanship. He'd printed the words in all-capital letters, tiny, to cram them all onto the page. The sight of all of them blocked in was overwhelming for Steve, and he had to lower the paper to his lap again to roll his head back and stare at the ceiling for a moment. The blank white paint was soothing compared to the seemingly-endless list of words on the white page lined with blue in his hand. Steve just couldn't believe this: all of it, any of it. He understood why Rumlow had given him the knowledge, but it still shook him deeply on an emotional level.

Bucky must have sensed the nature of the letter; he helpfully began clattering around the kitchen where he had previously been silent, letting the juice bottle clank as he set it on the counter, sliding the glass across the granite, closing the door to the fridge firmly, using his heavy boots to announce his footfalls. The noise was grounding for Steve, and it pulled him back from the whirlwind of his own thoughts. Reentering the world itself, Steve glanced back to see Bucky also looking his way, smiling reassuringly over the edge of his glass as he took the last sip of orange juice and then turned halfway away to rinse out the glass in the sink. It helped, seeing something so normal: it reminded Steve that Bucky was going to be okay, he was here now, he was alright, Rumlow was gone, they were both going to be okay...

With that firmly in mind, Steve folded the letter, tucked it back into the envelope, folded it neatly, and put it into his own pocket. It was for later. When the dust had settled and the loose ends were tied up and he needed something to occupy his mind and remind himself that he could in fact do something to help. For now, he wanted to enjoy the few stolen moments in time that he had here, now, with Bucky, because he knew they couldn't last forever.

So he went back into the kitchen, following Bucky's path around the couch and weaving past the little end table and ducking back around the little dividing wall. Bucky looked so utterly, devastatingly, crushingly _normal_ standing at the counter like that, both hands resting on the cool stone, weight leaned over his palms, crooked little smirk playing at the corners of his lips. Steve stepped in behind him, put his arms around his waist, and waited patiently for Bucky to lean back against him and find that one spot to stand where their bodies fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and then he rested his head on Bucky's shoulder and marveled at how it still felt odd, even all these years later, to stand behind Bucky and have to lean down to do that, instead of his forehead falling right between his best friend's shoulder blades.

Neither of them spoke; Bucky just exhaled a breath Steve thought he'd been holding ever since he'd handed him that letter, and leaned back into him that last little bit he'd been withholding. Both of his hands came to settle over Steve's, one flooded with warmth of living flesh and the other cool with the kiss of luekwarm air over hydraulically-cooled metal. The dichotomy didn't bother Steve in the slightest. If anything, he shuffled closer to Bucky and wrapped his arms tighter. The kiss he pressed against the side of Bucky's neck had his eyes sliding shut and his breath whooshing out again in bliss, and Steve knew then that, no matter what, nothing could ever truly separate them for good. It had been lunacy to ever entertain the notion in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I actually really like how this came out for going into it with no direction.
> 
> I think I only have one chapter left, but there miiiiiight be one more so I'm putting 6/8 for now. Next chapter will deal with Civil War, so I'll be updating the tags and adding spoiler warnings. Just a heads-up for anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet! And you totally should, it was phenomenal. More cookies and mangoes for my lovely readers! Thank you so much to everyone who leaves me comments and kudos, you all just make my day. <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Officially Civil War spoilers! Read at own risk!

Bucky vanished in the middle of the night a few days later.

Steve had suspected that was the way he would go: quietly, unobtrusively, without warning. The goodbye would be too painful, and Steve knew that if either of them had the chance to say goodbye properly they'd never actually succeed in parting. As agonizing as it was, though, Steve understood the necessity. For now, Bucky needed time to be himself by himself, to sort out who he was and what he was and who he wanted to be independent of any who could interfere and influence him. S.H.I.E.L.D. would never let him have peace or independence, which were two things he desperately needed. The best thing for him to do was disappear, let the dust settle, and get himself back together. In the mean time, Steve would need to have patience and let Bucky come back to him.

It was hell, though. Utter torture. Perhaps it would have been easier if Bucky had kept in touch-little things here and there to let Steve know he was okay, he was safe, he was making progress. The not-knowing was horrible, and it ate Steve alive. The feeling of worry churning low in his belly soon became a little monster he lived with daily, and soon, he only noticed it when it was absent. Day in and day out, he looked and listened and tried so, so hard not to chase Bucky. Not only would it hinder his efforts to regroup himself, it could lead others to him and it would only push Bucky farther away as he sought his freedom again. As much as Steve loathed it, he needed to let Bucky be.

At first, he dwelled. Every moment of every day, every free thought he had to spare, was devoted to those two and a half days of perfect bliss. They'd been everything that they'd been before, something more than friends but not quite lovers, something that spoke of an easy familiarity and a shared intimacy that transcended bodies and instead intertwined souls. It was most similar to the bond that old married couples shared, the sort of bond where each person knew exactly where to step and how to turn and where to reach and what to say to perfectly compliment their partner. Even if the flames of lust had faded to embers, the love was burning just as hot and bright as ever. So it was with him and Bucky: their shoulders brushed, when they sat on the couch, it was with their knees touching, they embraced freely and for prolonged periods of time. They wove a dance only the two of them knew the steps to, but it was still the most graceful and elegant thing either of them had ever danced.

It had been so tempting to let things go back to the way they had been: tumbling over each other, hands clumsy in desperation and bodies sweltering with heat. But too much had passed: time, events, mentalities, revelations, ages. They had in fact worn their years as their years wore them, so when Bucky started to kiss him a little deeper, when his hands drifted lower and his body pressed tighter, Steve ever-so-gently pulled away with an apologetic smile and whispered as he rested their foreheads together, "Wait. It's not that I don't want it-want you-I just...we need more time. We can't just...pick up where we left off." He'd kissed Bucky again, sweeter, chaster, and he couldn't tell if Bucky was relieved at not being expected to jump right back in or if he was truly disappointed, but it was all absolved by that little kiss as Steve concluded, "Let me fall in love with you all over again. In all the new ways. We're the same, but we're not...give it time."

Bucky had agreed, it would seem. He stayed another day, and it was like nothing had changed. They danced the same fluid dance, the smiles were relaxed and easy, the teasing was just sharp enough to be familiar but not so sharp as to bite, the hours passed far too quickly for either of their liking. It was a sense of euphoria that Steve knew couldn't last, so he clung to it and treasured every moment of it that he had. It would only make it more devastating in the end, but he refused to let even a moment of this slip by for fear of the future. The future would come soon enough, and he would worry about it then: for now, he had this, and it would end soon, so he would savor every second of it that he could.

Waking up to a cold bed was something he knew would come shortly, but still left him no more crestfallen for the knowing. It took him forever to get up that morning, lying motionless with his arm draped over the slight indent that still remained from where another body had been at rest, pressed flush against his own. The pillow still bore Bucky's scent, faint like the remnants of a lover's perfume, but all the more powerful for it. When Steve finally did manage to drag himself out of bed, he could feel the world-weariness returning to his steps, and he knew he would need to get going now or face never being able to start up again.

So he threw himself headlong into his missions. Hunting down HYDRA and all that remained of it, scorching base after base off the face of the earth and crossing them off the map as he went. The less people looking for Bucky and making it harder for him to hide, the better. And if the little worry-worm in his belly was drowned out in the furious rain of bullets clattering off his shield, it was a pleasant side effect. Ridding the world of others monsters, even more so. And Steve would deny it to the day he died, but vengeance tasted like nectar and ambrosia as he laid waste to each subsequent HYDRA facility. This was all for Bucky, every ounce of it. It was just a nice touch that a pinch of guilt ebbed away with each new victory.

Things went awry in Sokovia. Baron Von Strucker's arm had grown long indeed, and the actions he left behind had set off a chain reaction of events that spanned the globe. Attempting to clean up such a mess was a long, grueling task, one that they barely managed, and Steve knew in his core that they were becoming a damaged unit. They were no longer a team as they once were: Clint was quickly becoming outmatched by those around him, and his family weighed heavily on his mind. Bruce's concerns about his self-control and whether or not he was truly a force for good were plaguing him day in and day out. Thor had an entire galaxy to worry about, and it wasn't this one; the events back home were perhaps even more staggering than the ones he witnessed here. And Tony...Tony had always been a wildcard anyway.

Still, the emerged victorious, though not without heavy losses. Fortunately, Wanda and Vision had decided to stay, and Sam and Rhodey had signed on as permanent fixtures. Natasha stayed, too, to help him pull the team back together-what was left of it, anyway-and integrate the new recruits. Steve was eternally grateful for her help. They had a working relationship by now, and they held a unique trust between them that was an anomaly for their line of work. The familiarity was a comfort, too, and Steve knew he could count on Natasha where he couldn't count on many others. She knew him perhaps better than she knew herself, and it was an easy task for her to keep him focused, present, and occupied.

They continued their march around the world, each mission running smoother than the last as they settled into a new rhythm. The new members of the team were enthusiastic and passionate, and wanted to see good in the world succeeding as much as Steve did. It helped to be surrounded by such wonderful people: it provided him with a sense of normalcy, comradery, and a support system that was vital to reintegrating himself into the world. S.H.I.E.L.D. and everything it encompassed had been a shield in and of itself for Steve against the anxieties he refused to address about rejoining the world after seventy years out of it where everything had changed except him. Now, there were people who could help him ease the transition while they still pushed forward towards their main goal. It was everything Steve hadn't known he'd needed at the time, and he would be forever grateful to the people he came to know as friends.

He'd almost forgotten about him, he had to say. But one day, the next file appeared in front of him with the familiar name in the headline: Brock Rumlow. Apparently, Rumlow hadn't been lying as low as he'd wanted him to be lying. Rumor had it he was behind a series of crimes in and around the area, and now, he was gunning for a biological weapon in the nearby Infectious Disease Research Center. Steve had to excuse himself for a moment after receiving the report. Once again, he'd put his faith into people and seen it dashed. The memories of Rumlow being so tender and kind with Bucky were coming back like he'd never repressed them to begin with, and he just stood in the cream-colored hallway, slumped gracelessly against the wall, staring up at the ceiling without even bothering to conceal the hurt in his expression. Yes, he did feel hurt by this-wounded, betrayed, lied to. Rumlow hadn't really promised him shit, he guessed, but he didn't think this was any way to be leaving Bucky alone.

And when he was finally face-to-face with the bastard, it was like none of it had ever happened. Rumlow was every inch the bitter HYDRA warrior, still sowing chaos and reaping conflict. Masked, armed, surrounded by goons and wearing anger and resentment like a finely-tailored cloak, Rumlow daringly engaged Steve and forced him immediately into a fight-to-the-death spar. Steve knew instinctively the kind of fight this was the second Rumlow rushed him for the first time: only one of them would be walking away from this. His heart actually sank at the realized. A part of him had in fact thought better of Rumlow. He knew that this monster Rumlow was showing the world wasn't all there was to him. There was also the compassionate, if not gruff, man who had sheltered the fragile Winter Soldier from the hands of those who abused their power the most. As much as Steve hated to have to do this, he understood that it needed to be done.

Rumlow made it easy. Taunting him about Bucky, involving innocent civilians, threatening massive-scale destruction. It was so, so easy to let him go when he detonated his suicide-bomb, even if everything that followed was the polar opposite of easy. Tony had reappeared just in time to make things worse and in no time to make things better; the United Nations was stepping in to do damage control on the hordes of people screaming incessantly for action to be taken against the Avengers. No one seemed to understood that, for all their enhancements, at the end of the day, they were still just people doing the best that they could, and if they didn't step in, things would have been far worse. As difficult as it was to accept, there would always be casualties, because the bad guys didn't care who they endangered in their schemes. The goal was to keep them to a minimum, because trying to save everyone meant _losing_ everyone.

There was never any other option for him. He could not sign the Accords. No matter what Tony said, no matter how Vision analyzed it, no matter how Natasha wanted to use it, no matter how firmly Rhodey insisted...he couldn't. Steve no longer trusted anyone in the organized infrastructure of the government, and he knew full well that any action that needed to be taken would be pored over and debated to death for days, maybe even weeks, and by then, any action authorized would be far too little far too late. The Avengers couldn't be bogged down by bureaucracy. They needed to be able to step in when needed, immediately, free of the red tape that tripped up the rest of the world. That was why catastrophes had been avoided on the larger scale until now: they hadn't held hearings, they'd taken action.

He'd never been gladder he hadn't signed the moment he heard about what happened.

He refused to believe it. There was no way it was Bucky. That blurry picture could have been anyone, even if the person was passable in terms of looking like Bucky. Besides, Bucky was too good at what he did for this to be him. He never would have gotten caught on camera like that. And just like that, two years of promises and waiting and patience evaporated: Steve was actively on the hunt again. It was too late for anything else. Bucky needed to know, and he needed to get the hell out of dodge. And if Steve ran away with him, well...he wasn't going to be leaving much behind anyway.

Sam Wilson, bless his soul, had agreed to come with him and help. Serving as scout, lookout, and overview of the surrounding area, Sam kept Steve updated every few seconds as to what he saw and who was moving in where. Keeping it in the back of his head as he quietly and unobtrusively entered the apartment, Steve did his best to keep himself focused even as he wandered around and got a bearing on his surroundings.

Bucky had chosen a tiny, scrubby little hole in the wall to hide out in, and Steve felt his heart ache as he walked around. His best friend deserved so much better than this random sketchy dive that didn't ask questions and took payment in cash with no paper trail anywhere. He wanted to break down at the thought that this was how Bucky had been living for the past two years: completely alone, sequestered far from the general populace, hidden among the dregs of society and lumped in with them like he was a petty criminal or a drug addict or somehow unfit to live with the rest of civilization. He hated it. But he also wanted to throw up, because Bucky didn't need to be here. If he wanted to, he could pass himself off as a proper gentleman and get a respectable job and live semi-normally. But instead, he saw himself as fitting in better here, so he made himself comfortable and muddled along.

The air itself changed when Bucky entered the room. If not for how well they knew each other, how close they'd been, everything they'd been through, their own unique enhancements, Steve never would have known. But instead, that knowing gave him a moment to compose himself, turn around, and begin the speech he'd gone over a thousand times, begging Bucky to see reason and come quietly. It unraveled almost instantly, but he kept at it, pleading with Bucky to avoid a fight and make thing easy.

The look on Bucky's face said everything when he sadly told Steve that it always ended in a fight. From then on, it was all Steve could do to fend off the dozens of special forces police swarming the building, doing everything he could to give Bucky a fighting chance at escape. They'd been close, too: so close. If not for the Panther and his efforts, Bucky would have gotten away clean. And then he would have been gone again, simply vanished into thin air like he was so good at doing, but at least he would still have his freedom. Now, though, Steve just had to do the best he could with what he had. He stepped between Bucky and the Panther, making them both stand down while the police surrounded them again and trained their weapons on all three of them. He shouldn't have been surprised to see T'Challa behind the mask-why else would he make such a bold claim to Bucky's life unless he could back it up somehow?-but he was shocked all the same. He stood aside and let them take Bucky, and then submitted to them himself. The plan hadn't been to take Bucky alive, but now there were curious eyes and publicity abound. They couldn't shoot him in cold blood in front of so many witnesses, and now, they had no reason to. They'd all walk away from alive, which had really been Steve's only goal to begin with.

Natasha was right about one thing: things did get worse. So much worse. And in this case, "worse" meant the wrong person being allowed access to Bucky in his most vulnerable state, using that access to activate his Winter Soldier brainwashing, steal whatever information he could, and then get away as everyone else tried to stop Bucky. Steve was just grateful that he'd been the one to catch Bucky as he attempted to escape in a helicopter-no one else could have thwarted that attempt, and no one else would have bothered to try. it would have been standing order: kill on sight again. Endlessly relieved that Bucky was unconscious when he pulled him out of the chopper, Steve used the wreck and the distance to make his own daring escape attempt. Thankfully, unlike Bucky, he was successful.

Sam met him later; they figured out who was responsible and what they wanted. And while Sam ran off to start work on a plan, Steve sat down with Bucky and tried to restrain all of the emotions currently whirling around in his heart and in his head like a maelstrom. As if he hadn't been shaken enough by the past twenty-four hours, now, he had to confront all of the things he'd buried the last time Bucky left: the confusion, the hurt, the guilt, the longing, the regret, the pain, pain, pain. All of it combined with the urge to just wrap Bucky up in his arms and sob, kissing him stupid, and then sobbing again.

"I'm sorry."

It was the only thing he could think of to say, and the only thing he knew how to say, and the only thing that was safe. But Bucky laughed, a candid, morbid sound that echoed like a mockery of mirth around the empty garage they'd hidden out in. _"You're_ sorry?" he snickered, turning to face Steve and then just as quickly glancing away again to shake his head in what was apparently disbelief. "No, you stupid punk, _I'm_ sorry. I got so caught up in running I didn't look behind me. And now all this shit just blew up in our faces." He paused there, seemingly waiting on some interjection he anticipated but that never came; Steve was still too astonished to come up with anything coherent. "I kept track of you. The whole world over, Stevie. I made sure to swing by a few days before or after and mop up any loose ends. Not your fault, you just didn't know what was important...what they'd go back for. Sometimes you got it all, though. I was impressed. And I wish I could have come sooner, caught up with you, it's just..."

"I know you had a lot to worry about yourself." Steve chose to interrupt then, unable to bear the weight of Bucky's apology anymore. "Don't apologize, I just...I appreciate everything that you've done to help, and I know you needed the time to yourself anyway. I do wish it didn't have to be like this, though."

"Yeah, well...I was figuring it was about time to pop back up anyway." And Steve would be damned if Bucky didn't produce another crumpled envelope from his boot, hidden from when he'd been captured, and pass it to Steve, a little smile hinting at just one corner of his mouth as he teased, "I'm surprised you didn't find this in Lagos."

This time, Bucky ducked under his arm while he read, burying his face in his neck and closing his eyes and slowing his breathing while Steve held the paper down and away, out of any line of sight Bucky could possibly have. In reality, as much as he wanted to keep this from Bucky, he couldn't bear to let go yet, either. This wasn't the domestic bliss of his apartment two years ago: there was nowhere safe for Bucky to wander to, no absurdly-normal space to fritter the time away in for a few days while they cherished the fact that they had been reunited again. So Steve didn't object, wrapping his arm around Bucky and holding him tightly, leaning forward to further shield him from the words on the page. The envelope, as before, had been sealed: and Steve would like to keep it that way for Bucky.

_Rogers,_

_Being the douche I am, I'm breaking my fucking promises again. I'm really sorry, man. I know this is churning up stuff in the wrong part of the world for Bucky. But some shit's come up. I can't stay out of this anymore._

_Tell Bucky I'm sorry. I've done a lot of thinking while all this has been catching up with me. I'm looking down the barrel of a locked-and-loaded gun now-turns out the shit HYDRA gave me to keep me alive after you dropped a Goddamn building on my face worked a little too well. Now it's killing me instead. I don't wanna go out the way I would have before-hooked up to machines and pumped full of chemicals. So I'm juicing on experimental drugs I can't pronounce and popping Vicodin like it's candy and gearing up._

_I was after that biological weapon, yeah. But it's to keep it away from someone else. You'll find out soon enough-he's gunning for Bucky. So while Bucky worries about the shit that I'm dragging up you better be worried about him. I'm gonna try to take this shit to the grave with me, but you still gotta be there for him. Use that shield of yours, Cap-he needs it. Haven't talked to him since I left, like I promised, but if he hasn't found you yet I don't think he thinks he's ready. Could be that no matter how much he prepares, he'll never be ready. But that's for him to sort out._

_You, on the other hand, gotta step up to the plate. You remember that list I gave you, what I said about it-you fucking better, because what'd I say, somebody else knows what we know now. You gotta keep your promises like you always do and I always don't, and you gotta protect him from what's coming. I'm gonna do what I can, but it may not be much, buddy. Since you'll only find this after I'm dead, lemme just say thank you. I died fighting my greatest opponent while protecting the man that I think I can say I loved. I couldn't ask to go a better way._

_Don't worry-I'm on enough meds to kill a horse. I didn't feel a fuckin' thing._

_Bye, Winter. Sorry I don't know shit about feelings. I tried for you._

_-лето_

Steve would be forever grateful for the fact that Bucky couldn't see his face as he looked up from the letter. Once again, Rumlow was destroying everything he thought he knew about him, making sure that Steve never really knew which way he was leaning until it was too late anyway. Wracked with conflict, unable to wrap his mind around any of it, Steve settled for addressing the simplest question just to have something to get his brain around that would, hopefully, quiet the squall raging in his head.

"Bucky...what's лето mean?"

And if he didn't get the hollowest laugh that somehow said it all! Steve could swear Bucky knew everything from that laugh, like it had all been made clear and everything made perfect sense now. It scared him, if he was being honest.

"It means 'summer,'" Bucky explained, in that slow drawl that was smug with the fact that he knew something. "He always called me Winter...so I called him Summer. Was how we knew it was each other. Even when I forgot everything else, I remembered лето. He called me Winter because I endured. Everything. I was strong, unable to be defeated, ever-lasting, immortal. I was a force to be reckoned with that would survive for ages, with stories told about me and everything. And he...he was Summer. Short, but intense, and always left a lasting impact long after he was gone. All the stronger for how fleeting he was. He knew I would be around for decades longer than him, possibly centuries. He wasn't my first handler, nor would he be my last. But he was the only one I ever really remembered. Remembered _him,_ not just how he made me feel, like some of the others. Besides...

"Summer's always over too soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeaaaaaah, there's one more. Thank you to everyone who's stuck around since the beginning-I know I left you hanging for a very long time there for a while. And thank you to everyone who jumped in and took a chance on this story, I hope you'll see it through to the end! I hope you all enjoyed, have some mangoes and cookies (seriously, I just baked two dozen cookies just because I could and I'm eating all of them so come save me from myself.) See you one more time on this story!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because we all got those mid-credit scene feels.

Steven Grant Rogers did not know the meaning of the term "self-restraint" until he watched his best friend willingly walk into a cryostasis chamber, submit himself to restraints and an IV, turn to look at him, and smile at him one last time before frost clouded up the glass and took him away from even his sight.

He didn't know how he stood there, motionless, as Bucky gave him that reassuring, apologetic look, just before his eyes closed and he was torn away from Steve all over again. Maybe because he actually looked _peaceful,_ like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Maybe because this was the first choice Bucky had actually made for himself since falling from that train a lifetime ago. Maybe because, despite all he begged and pleaded, Steve knew he couldn't change Bucky's mind even if he wanted to, and that maybe, just maybe, way deep down, past the part of him willing to admit defeat...maybe Steve acknowledged that Bucky couldn't do anything anyway. So he might as well have some peace for himself.

Or maybe it was just because he felt _so fucking selfish_ for ever entertaining the thought of trying to stop Bucky.

Still, it had been far more difficult than he'd like to admit. He could still feel the strands of Bucky's hair, longer than ever but soft and clean now after a thorough shower, sliding between his calloused fingers. Could still feel the nearly-stifling warmth of his body as they stood too close to be appropriate and didn't care either way. Could still feel the smooth planes of pale skin over firm muscle under his rough palms. Could still feel the press of petal-soft lips against his own, quenching the thirst he'd been dying of for decades, and could still feel it all come crashing back the moment they parted again, even if his hands were still tangled in that dark brown hair feeling the scritch of days-old stubble along the heels of his hands where they rested on his jaw-

_"I can't, Stevie," Bucky whispered, closing his eyes and bowing his head. Steve had leaned in and kissed him again, as long as he dared, before the fear that he'd never stop could creep in. And Bucky melted, slumping down even further, looking positively exhausted but also elated that Steve was still here, still holding him, still kissing him- "Not here, not now, not...not like this. And I wish I could, God, I wish...but-"_

_"I know." He couldn't bear to hear the words out loud. Because if Bucky spoke them, it would make them real, and when it became real, that was when it started to hurt. Inhaling slowly, a weak and ragged scrape of breath, Steve cobbled together his control and told Bucky, meaning every word, "I won't make you wait long. I won't rest until I've figured out a way to get that out of your head once and for all. And the moment I do, I'll be back here, waking you up, and I'll greet you proper this time, since we're allowed to now, and it'll be the last time, Buck, you hear me? That's my promise to you, this will absolutely be the very last time you ever have to get into one of those things. And it's gonna be better coming out-you're gonna be safe, and comfortable, and we're gonna do it right, and I'm gonna be there, 'cuz hell if I'm letting you wake up without me again, it's happened too many times already-"_

_He would have promised Bucky the world if Bucky didn't smirk and kiss him silent again. Thank God for small things, Steve mused, sighing out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding as Bucky sat back again, that crooked grin still across his mouth even if it didn't reach his tired, tired eyes. "You're such a sappy little punk, ya know that?" he teased, but he still didn't unlace their fingers from where they were twined together down at their sides. Even sitting up on the exam table, Bucky was slouched enough that their hands hung at the same height. He'd never fathomed he could feel so comfortable in a medical environment again, but something about T'Challa was so earnest and so honorable that Bucky trusted him. So while Steve kept blubbering, Bucky kept kissing the protests and promises away until there was nothing left between them but the comfort of the other's presence and the sense of finality between them. Only then would Steve let him go anyway._

He was able to stay and hold himself together long enough to extensively thank T'Challa and make arrangements for checking in and keeping in touch; then, he did as promised, and sped off across the world to find a way to reverse the horrific brainwashing that was now so deeply ingrained in Bucky's brain. Spurred on by a desperate need to have Bucky back once and for all, Steve furiously dove into any and all research he could find, including old HYDRA files on Wanda Maximoff's powers and Tony Stark's latest attempt to assuage his own guilt. The man might be incredibly selfish, but his technology could be used for greater good.

In the end, it was Sam Wilson, every inch the blessing Steve counted him as, that was the breakthrough. Steve didn't know why he hadn't thought of him sooner: working in the VA, Sam had vast experience with PTSD, mental trauma, and a whole host of other problems combat-experienced veterans dealt with. If nothing else, he had to have a starting point. And sure enough, Sam had a wealth of information for Steve to look into, and even if some of it wasn't directly applicable or wasn't going to be enough for the level of difficulty Bucky was facing, it all offered perspective, insight, and understanding. Deprograming was tricky, he explained, but not impossible. It might take some time, and it would certainly take some effort, but Sam was confident that this would have a good outcome. As difficult as it was to trust these days, Steve found himself putting his faith in Sam quite readily. He liked to think he was a good judge of character-and Sam had always done right by him in the past.

Waking Bucky up was one of the tensest times of Steve's life. Forbidden from entering the room, perhaps as a precaution or perhaps just to keep him out of the way (and T'Challa knew Steve well-he'd be under everyone's feet trying to run the show,) Steve was forced to watch from a one-way window as the chamber Bucky was kept in was slowly brought back up to room temperature. It took hours to do, the increase painstakingly gradual, but necessary. Sam drifted in and out during these few hours, but Steve remained glued to the window, watching and waiting with bated breath as the monitors blinked on and started picking up readings. Doctors were running around preparing the rest of the room; someone was always adjusting something, taking readings from somewhere, fussing with this or that or the other thing. Sam almost certainly felt useless and bored, but Steve couldn't imagine walking away. These were the most crucial moments, and he'd sworn to Bucky that he would be there when he woke up. If he wasn't the first thing Bucky saw when he opened his eyes, he didn't think he'd ever forgive himself.

Finally, the temperature on the exterior display of the cryochamber read the same as the thermostat in the hallway. It was one of the few things Steve could understand as the doctors discussed Bucky's revival in difficult and specific medical terminology. The only other things he could pick out were heart rate, breaths per minute, and body temperature. As alarming as it had been to watch the temperature initially pick up well below freezing, it was now reading a comfortable ninety-six point four. Bucky was breathing on his own, his heart rate was strong and regular-it was all looking good.

One of the doctors stepped out then, and Steve bolted to his feet instantly to greet them. Dwarfing the dark-skinned woman who wore her lengthy hair in seemingly-millions of tiny braids, the petite woman nevertheless fearlessly shook his hand, introducing herself as Doctor Zeah Allen, the head doctor overseeing the procedure. Her accent was clear, but soft and soothing, and Steve couldn't help but throw himself into the comfort of her calm tone. It grounded him in a time when his mind was spinning like a maelstrom. Infinitely grateful to have an update, the edge taken off his worries by the knowledge, Steve listened intently and hung onto every word the woman said to try to better understand what was happening and know what to expect.

"Everything looks very good right now," she was explaining, "but there is still potential for complication. Given how many times he has been in and out of cryofreeze, we believe that he will be relatively stable and the probability of any complication is low. This environment is surely kinder than the last one he woke up in. However, he may be disoriented and a bit out-of-sync. If he comes out of it and doesn't handle it well emotionally, we do have emergency sedatives on hand. That will allow him to wake up differently, and we can try again that way. At least he won't have to thaw out then."

"Do you think he will?" Steve asked, hesitant, but determined to know all the same.

"There's no way to tell for sure," Doctor Allen answered, her full lips stretched into an apologetic smile and her large, dark eyes swimming with sympathy. "We have no precedent for him-this is our first time waking him up. And hopefully the last. As I said before, we have every reason to believe it will go well, but we wanted to make sure we were prepared for any scenario."

It was smart, Steve would admit. As difficult as it was to accept, Bucky might in fact come out of this swinging. And Bucky was downright lethal when he got to swinging. "I understand," Steve reassured the doctor, but it still sounded like he was choking on the words as the worry vomited itself all over his face. It was impossible to swallow down and impossible to hide, but Steve couldn't even bring himself to be ashamed. "Thank you for taking such good care of him."

"It's our pleasure," Doctor Allen told him, trying again to smile at him. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we should be just about ready to open the chamber. If he wakes up alright, you should be able to come in and see him within the hour."

It was difficult to believe it, but Doctor Allen would tell him later that she'd expected far worse from Bucky's waking-up moments. At first, when they opened the chamber, they had tried to lift Bucky out and transfer him to a hospital bed to let him wake up normally; Bucky had come to much quicker than that, suddenly exploding into consciousness and stumbling out of the tank, wide-eyed and skittish. The doctors, bless their souls, backed off and waited patiently, shutting off as much of the machinery as they could and speaking to Bucky calmly, slowly, and normally, giving him the date and time and quick reminder of where he was and why he was there. Once he'd had a few moments to get his bearings again, Bucky seemed to come back to himself, and Steve didn't realize just how long he'd been holding his breath until he gasped in a long, wheezing, desperate inhale.

They let him see Bucky forty minutes later. He'd been through the doorway before Doctor Allen could even finish her sentence, but she didn't look like she had the heart to be too annoyed with him as she turned around and followed him halfway, refraining from any admonitions regarding how to handle Bucky. Whether it was because she figured Steve knew him or because she knew he wouldn't hear a word she said anymore, he didn't know, but Steve was glad of it anyway. It was one less thing to focus on.

Bucky looked much better now-far more awake and relaxed. Comfortable, even, despite the way his shoulders canted right now at the absence of his metal arm. The doctors had been able to clean up the remains of the prosthesis, closing all of the open wires and smoothing out the sharp edges of the metal plates around the exterior. It was still wrapped, just the way it had been when Bucky went in, and Steve thought that it was only fitting that Bucky be without it now. Free of the last vestiges of Hydra. He could get a new prosthetic here, a better one, one that they knew wasn't contaminated with any Hydra weaponry, and one that fit him better. One without a red star.

Bucky laughed as Steve rushed into the room and fairly tackled him; he rolled with him, startlingly dexterous and balanced for the lack of such a heavy weight on his left side, and he effortlessly turned them over and over again until he'd gotten them both under control and pinned Steve down so he couldn't cause any more havoc. Steve didn't even mind at the moment; he could still reach up, fist his hands in Bucky's shirt, and drag him down into a sloppy, overly-enthusiastic kiss.

"Punk," Bucky chuckled, when Steve could finally stand to release him. With his hand pressed tightly to Steve's chest, he could feel every single beat of his friend's racing heart-and it gave him chills to know that Steve was that excited to see him. It reminded him that someone out there still loved him and cared about him and forgave him, even if Steve would swear there was nothing to forgive.

"You didn't do anything stupid while I was out, did you?" Bucky asked, the question essentially rhetorical. They all knew the answer.

"Couldn't," Steve replied, cocking his head like Bucky ought to have seen this coming. "You took it all with you. Didn't leave any for me."

The laughter felt giddy now-like he was on cloud nine, and nothing could bring him down. Nothing else mattered. Steve's world had narrowed entirely and exclusively to Bucky Barnes, sitting on top of him looking entirely too pleased with himself, but he was _there_ and he was _real_ and he was _alive_ and there was nothing that could ever be better than that. Neither of them noticed when Doctor Allen slipped out of the room and politely shut the door behind herself-it would seem she trusted the two of them not to get into too much trouble-they were just too engrossed in the fact that the other was there.

"So, you found a way, huh?" Bucky was asking, apparently content to stay right there, looking down at him, comfortably astride his hips like he belonged there.

"We did," Steve confirmed, letting his hands settle on Bucky's thighs for the moment. He had no doubt in his mind that, even one-armed, Bucky could still wrestle him into submission easily. The beauty of it all was that he would choose not to.

"Well...you gonna say the magic words, or are you just gonna sit there gawkin' at me all damn day?"

And the grin Steve gave him then, massive and goofy and just so _happy,_ was worth everything in the world and more to Bucky. "Not magic words," Steve clarified. "More like a magic spell. Lots of complicated things going on. Wanda can explain it better."

"Wanda, is that who figured all this out?"

"No, actually...it was Sam who had the original idea. Wanda took that and a few ideas of Tony's and a few ideas of Natasha's and put them together with her own ideas and now she's going to work some magic."

"Gotta say...I've always been a sucker for a good magic trick."

"Then come see one," Steve urged, like Bucky had originally said no. Like he was afraid he'd change his mind. Bucky just smiled down at him, face bathed in quiet understanding. He knew exactly what Steve was really trying to say to him-something he'd been dying to say for eighty-some years, ever since the rail on the side of that damned train broke. It was something Steve had, for a time, given up on saying, but that he was clinging to all the more now for having the chance to say it.

_Come home._

"Alright, punk," Bucky acquiesced, voice nearly a whisper but still the only sound aside from their breath. Rolling back off of Steve to stand next to the bed, Bucky rolled his good shoulder and stretched his back, acting like wrangling an overly-enthusiastic Steve Rogers was some trying task. The crooked smile on his face betrayed him, though, and Steve was drawn to him like a magnet as he began to drift away from the bed, calling back,

"Make it a good one!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done, but it's not...it doesn't feel like it's done. I was vague about Bucky's "cure" for a reason-it's just not the focus here. (And I'm a lazy little shite. Fight me.) Plus, a bunch of other people have already written a bunch about it, and I feel like I don't have anything to add right now. So, that's all I had planned, but I still don't have that satisfied, content sort of feeling I get when I finish something. I might need to do something to wrap this up a little tidier...
> 
> Epilogue, anyone?


	9. Chapter 9

Bucky had been awake again for two days now. The first had been spent getting him up and moving again, making sure that he'd suffered no complications from going into and then coming out of the ice. Once the doctors had given the all-clear, Steve, Bucky, Sam, Natasha, and Wanda had all congregated in a small, intimate room, locked the door, and set about removing Hydra's triggers from Bucky's brain. The process was long and tense, but successful in the end. When she had concluded, Wanda excused herself to go rest; Natasha went with her, leaving Bucky with Sam and Steve. Sam stayed only long enough to make sure both super-soldiers were alright before excusing himself as well. He'd promised to come back with a round of coffee for everyone, and went around taking orders. Just black, no cream or sugar, for both Steve and Bucky-that was how they'd had it in the army, and they'd just gotten used to it-Natasha wanted it black as well, but bring a little sugar in a packet just in case-Wanda wanted half coffee half cream-and the doctors had their varying requests. Sam finally made a list in his phone and disappeared, leaving Steve and Bucky by themselves again.

The privacy was welcome. No one was terribly bothered by the closeness the two men had exhibited over the past few days, but the urge to hide and suppress their mutual affection was deeply-ingrained in both of them. The time period they'd discovered their love in was not friendly to people like them, and Steve and Bucky had figured out very quickly exactly how far they could push the envelope before people started to whisper. Hiding it was second nature; denying it came as easily as breathing. Undoing years of external homophobia's effect on their behaviors would take time, likely as much time as they'd spent trying to reconcile their own feelings to begin with. So for now, the privacy was appreciated, and the way nobody seemed fazed by the fact that they'd been anything but careful was a helpful step forward.

"I'm glad you're here," Bucky started, scooting sideways across the modest, neutral bed in the center of the room and bumping his hip and shoulder against Steve's. Sometimes, it still felt odd to him that Steve was bigger than him, that when he did that, Steve didn't even twitch. Used to be that Bucky could knock him over by breathing funny-a little punk ninety pounds soaking wet who couldn't even breathe half the time. And now he was a hulking giant of pure muscle. It was still jarring on some level, and with Bucky's mind as mixed-up as it was these days, the little things that were second nature to him sometimes came back up from where he'd forgotten them in a pile in the corner of his head.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Steve promised, throwing his arm around Bucky's shoulders and pulling him closer. Bucky melted against his side, sagging his weight into him like when he exhaled, all of the tension was simply breathed out. With his head pillowed on Steve's shoulder, Bucky let his eyes slide shut and tucked one of his ankles behind Steve's, just to feel close. The intimacy calmed him, reminded him he was safe-and while he didn't quite trust himself yet, it was easy to trust Steve.

"Thanks for comin' anyway," Bucky murmured, voice dropping in pitch and intonations beginning to flatten as the energy drained out of him. "Know it was a long trip, lotta people to put together."

"It was no trouble at all," Steve reassured him. In the end, it wasn't the words that did it, but the gentle kiss against his temple that sealed the confirmation. Bucky always had trusted actions over words-in his mind, they spoke far truer. Lots of people had told him lots of things, but in the end, it was how they acted on those words that showed him their honest colors.

Like Brock Rumlow. He'd been flitting back and forth across Bucky's mind for months now, ever since he'd learned of his former handler's death in Lagos. Now, immediately after Wanda's bit of rummaging in his head, some Hydra memories were closer to the surface than others. Rumlow was confusing to Bucky, and had stuck around for that reason. Even through the memory wipes, Bucky often had faint recollections of Rumlow, usually the ones where he would snarl some sharp, firm order to him, only to turn around when no one was watching and remove his mask with hands he didn't know could be so gentle and offer him water with the sort of concerned expression that told Bucky he actually _cared-_

"Listen, Buck...I wanted to ask you something...about Rumlow..."

It seemed Bucky wasn't the only one thinking of the past.

He squirmed a bit, disturbed in mind and body at the thoughts coming forward now, but he didn't move away from Steve. Instead, he threw his arm around his torso to show he wasn't bothered by the question and prompted, "What about him?"

It took Steve a long time to answer. Long enough that Bucky's brow furrowed, his eyes opened, and he glanced up at Steve to see if he was alright. He was, at least, _okay._ He looked like conjuring up the words to speak was a struggle that left him as winded and agonized as his struggles to breathe a hundred years ago did. These were horrible, difficult questions...but Bucky knew they had to be asked. This discussion was a necessary one if they were to move forward and be able to leave the past behind them, unable to fester and rot and rear its ugly head later on. They couldn't harbor any lingering emotions on this-they needed to get this out of the way now. But for all that knowledge and all that inevitability, Steve was still having trouble spitting it out.

"What was he to you?"

The most heavily-loaded question Steve could come up with, Bucky observed with a slight snort of laughter. Yeah...finesse and subtly were more Natasha's shtick. Steve preferred to get right to the point, no pussyfooting around. Wasted time, he said. Well...Bucky could at least respect that.

"Somebody who looked out for me," Bucky started a few moments later. "I'm gonna do the best I can here based on what I remember...I was all fucked up for those few years, gotta keep in mind." Steve didn't respond, so after a few seconds of silence, Bucky shifted his weight again and resumed speaking. Tucking his legs up behind him on the bed, he slouched down even more to bury his face in Steve's chest, breathing in the scent of clean laundry and neutral deodorant before continuing. "He always played the hard badass of Hydra in front of everybody else...but he made excuses for me. Said I'd gashed myself on something, he needed a second to look at it. I was smart enough not to say anything, even though I knew I wasn't hurt and I knew I should say so. According to programming, anyway. But something told me I should keep my mouth shut, so I did. And when we were by ourselves, he'd take off the mask and the goggles and everything and give me some water, maybe something to eat if he had it. He'd sort my hair out, talk to me, wipe my face. Make me a little bit more comfortable. I appreciated it, for what it was worth. I had his back when he were deployed on missions together...and some of the other ones, I really didn't.

"I think he felt for me. But I also think that neither of us really knew what feelings were at that point. He was so deep in Hydra that he couldn't tell right from wrong anymore and I wasn't firing on all cylinders. So we just kind of...had our moments, and that was that. Not much more we could do. I'll say one thing for him, though...even in front of other people, he was never rough with me. Firm, yeah. But not abusive. I always made sure I listened to him for that reason. I didn't want him to have to be an asshole. Some part of me knew he didn't want to. So I made it easy on him.

"He did kiss me once, though. We both knew it was wrong straight off the bat-he felt like he was taking advantage of me, I didn't really know what I was doing. He apologized right away, said it would never happen again-and it didn't. Never stopped taking care of me, though.

"Truth be told, Steve, I don't think there's a word for what we were. 'Complicated,' maybe. But that doesn't really cover it. So, I don't know what to call it. Maybe in another time, in another place, it coulda been different...but at the end of the day, we'll never know."

Steve, to his credit, took the speech in stride. Neither of them moved, save the dramatic rise and fall of the sculpted chest Bucky had laid his head on as Steve sucked in a huge, massive breath and then ever-so-slowly let it out again. They both just sat, digesting the candid information Bucky had so bluntly divulged, letting it sit and air out in the open. It felt good to get it off his chest, Bucky mused, but now he was left with the tightness of waiting and anticipating where the churning anxiety of holding it in had resided before. How would Steve take this? How would he feel? How would he react? Would this change anything? Dear God, he hoped not-Steve was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and Bucky would be damned if he let him work himself up into some self-righteous act of noble valor on account of the fact that his severely-damaged brain could have possibly imagined some feelings for Brock Rumlow in a past life-

"And what am I to you?"

A much easier question to answer, Bucky noted with relief as he burrowed even deeper into that welcoming embrace. Steve returned it with a strong, reassuring squeeze that gave him the courage to respond almost immediately:

"Everything."

With all the nights he'd spent lying awake pondering, musing, thinking and rethinking and overthinking it, he was just happy to have an answer, let alone the chance to give it. Steve seemed thrilled with it, too, because he was abruptly smothered in an enormous bear-hug that brought a huge grin to his face. He hadn't actually minded missing that arm until now: it meant that Steve had the edge when it came to squashing him in a hug.

"Thank you," he whispered, and damn if he didn't sound like he was holding back tears, like Bucky had just asked him to marry him or something- "Thank you, I..."

"Shuddup, punk."

"Okay."

He managed to keep Steve from blubbering anything else too sappy for at least another ten minutes. He didn't care about being smushed against Steve's side. He didn't even try to change positions, even when his right leg started to get tingly. It felt good to be wrapped up so tight, so safe, so warm, so loved. Maybe it was wrong to say he hadn't felt it since he fell from the train-Rumlow had tried, and done his very best with what he had-but it wasn't the same. Not only was it the wrong time and the wrong place and the wrong situation, it was the wrong person. Bucky was realizing now that what he had with Steve was unique, and couldn't ever he replicated. Any attempt would be a sorry, pathetic failure. And he was alright with that, because he was also realizing that Steve was all he ever wanted. He appreciated and valued everything Rumlow had done for him, especially with the risk involved...at the end of the day, though, he wasn't Steve.

"I should have given this to you sooner," Steve said at one point, before Bucky could shush him again. "I think we each found the wrong ones...in Lagos. But...it's sealed..."

And there it was, another plain white envelope, and somehow, Bucky just knew what was inside it. Just like he'd known that the one he'd found was for Steve. Taking the paper, noting how it was so much cleaner and crisper than the one he's grabbed, he ripped it open unceremoniously and tried to swallow down the way his heart leaped into his throat when he saw the oh-so-familiar handwriting crawling across the page like so many leggy little spiders. They had indeed found the wrong envelopes in Lagos...but they'd been returned to their proper addressees now, and he supposed all was well that ended well. Steve politely turned away to let him read, but still kept a hand on him, strong fingers massaging the tense muscles at the back of his neck in an echo of the way Rumlow had rested his hand there in an attempt to soothe away the tension of a collar he hadn't even known he wore-

_зима,_

_I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I tried. But I'm trying to be a decent man in an indecent time. I hope you know I really did care. I didn't know how to show it or say it, but I did. You're smart, though. You probably had me figured long before I ever acknowledged it myself. I don't want to call it love, I never accepted it to that extent...but you bet your ass I cared._

_I could never give you what you really needed, though. And I know I can't hold a candle to Rogers. So when your brain wanders its way back into your head, I hope you remember everything. Not just how I had to yell at you in front of Pierce to keep him from doing something bad, but also how I pulled you away from the bomb you'd just set off and wiped the ash and blood off your face and told you you'd be alright. I meant every word I ever said to you-I just hate myself for not being able to keep my promises._

_Rest easy, though: the universe got me back for lying to you so many times. All the shit Hydra gave me to keep me alive is now EATING me alive. I'm gonna die anyway, зима, so I decided I'd rather go my way. I'm gonna piss off your boyfriend and take a few Hydra goons and bases down with me. With any luck, nobody else will suspect a thing. It's a good way for me to go, better than I deserve, maybe...but I'm gonna die going toe-to-toe with Captain America, protecting you from a few more bad guys who are poking around in the wrong part of town. I'm on a ton of meds-I don't hurt. Like I said, this is way better than I deserve._

_But hopefully it's enough to give you peace. I don't deserve that peace of mind, and I'm not gonna deserve this either, but I'm gonna say it anyway: I do love you, in my own weird, twisted little way. As much as a guy like me can love. So read this, don't read it, believe it, don't believe it, keep it, burn it, I don't know. But whatever you do, make sure it's YOUR choice. They're ALL yours now, and don't you forget it. You put your foot down on Star-Spangled Rogers: don't let him do anything too stupid. He likes to do shit like jump out of quinjets without a parachute. You can tell him I told you that, too. He'll be mad, but it'll be funny._

_Take care of yourself, зима. As long as you're doing well, I can rest in peace._

_Always,_

_Лето_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHY DOES THIS STILL NOT FEEL DONE IS THIS GOING TO BE ONE OF THOSE THINGS THIS IS ACTUALLY WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.
> 
> Well, it's close enough. I'm going to call it done and if I come up with something else I'll post it. Freebie! Thank you so much to everyone who left me comments and kudos, you all make my day. <3 Have some cookies and mangoes, and take a few for the road! It's been a long ride, so a special thank-you to those who are returning readers from when I first posted this over a year ago! I hope you all enjoyed-leave me a comment down below, I always love hearing from you guys. And stay tuned, I do have an idea for another work that I'm hoping to have up some time within the next week or two. Hope to see you all there!! <33333

**Author's Note:**

> RumBuck: OTP. Thank you to all who leave kudos and comments; let me know if you want to see more of this, because I can easily see more chapters to this!


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